i^i^aI^.^iiiAit.i;A2ii^i^^^ 


intljeCttpoflmiork 


LIBRARY 


THE   MONKS   OF   THE   WEST 


VOLUME  THE  SECOND 


THE 

MONKS  OF  THE  WEST 

FROM    ST.    BENEDICT   TO    ST.    BERNARD 

BY    THE 

COUNT  DE  MONTALEMBERT 

MEMBER    OF   THE    FRENCH   ACADEMY 

IVITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY  THE 

REV.  F.  A.  GASqUET,  D.D.,  O.S.B. 

AUVI(*R   •>F 
"HENRY   VIII.    AND  THE   ENGLISH   MONASTERIES" 

FIDE  ET  VERITATE 

IN    SIX    VOLUMES 
VOLUME  THE   SECOND 


NEW    YORK 
LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

AND    LONDON 

MDCCCXCVI 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  &  Co. 
At  the  Ballantyne  Press 


CONTENTS 


BOOK    V 

PAaB 
St.  Gregory  the  Great. — Monastic  Italy  and  Spain  in 

THE  Sixth  and  Seventh  Centuries  .         .         .         i 

BOOK    VI 

The  Monks  under  the  First  Merovingians   .         .         .     i ii 

BOOK    VII^ 

St.  Columbanus. — The  Irish  in  Gaul  and  the  Colonies 

of  Luxeuil 239 

BOOK    VIII 
CHRISTIAN  ORIGIN  OF  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 

L    GREAT  BRITAIN  BEFORE  THE  CONVERSION  OP  THE  SAXONS  365 

II.    THE  SAINTS  AND  MONKS  OF  WALES 387 

IIL    MONASTIC  IRELAND  AFTER  ST.  PATRICK  .  .  ,  .      42I 


321828 


BOOK   V 

ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT.  — MONASTIC    ITALY   AND 
SPAIN  IN  THE  SIXTH  AND  SEVENTH  CENTURIES 

SUMMARY 

Cassiodorus  :  his  monastic  retreat  and  his  Christian  academy  at  Viviers 
in  Calabria.— The  disciples  of  Benedict  in  Sicily :  martyrdom  of  St. 
Placidus.— Benedictine  Mission  and  Martyr  Monks  in  Italy. — 
Ravages  of  the  Lombards :  they  overthrow  Farfa  and  Novalese. — First 
destruction  of  Monte  Cassino. 

St.  Gregory  the  Great  :  his  birth,  his  conversion  ;  he  becomes  a 
monk  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Andrea  ;  his  alms  and  fasts. — He  is  nuncio 
at  Constantinople,  afterwards  abbot  of  his  monastery  ;  his  severity  against 
individual  property. — His  desire  to  go  to  convert  the  Angles  :  the  Romans 
detain  him.— He  is  elected  Pope,  to  his  very  gr^t  grief  :  his  plaintive 
letters  on  leaving  the  cloister. — State  of  the  world  and  of  the  Church  at 
his  accession. — Italy  at  once  abandoned  and  ground  down  by  the  Byzantine 
emperors. — Relations  of  Gregory  with  the  Lombards  :  he  defends 
Rome  against  them.  —Homilies  on  Ezekiel  interrupted.— Mediation  be- 
tween Byzantium  and  the  Lombards  :  Agilulf  and  Theodelinda. — Conver- 
sion of  the  Lombards. — Dialogues  on  the  ancient  monks. — His  STRUGGLES 
AGAINST  THE  GREEKS. — Conflict  with  John  the  Faster,  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, with  reference  to  the  title  of  universal  bishop  :  he  desires  for 
himself  only  the  title  of  servant  of  the  servants  of  God. — Conflict  with  the 
Emperor  Maurice  :  law  against  the  admission  of  soldiers  to  monasteries  ; 
celebrated  letter  to  Maurice. — Maurice  dethroned  and  slain  by  Phocas  : 
congratulations  of  Gregory  to  the  new  emperor  ;  contrast  to  his  courage 
and  habitual  rectitude./^He  turns  towards  the  new  races,  becomes  their 
ally  and  instructor,  and  thus  begins  to  emancipate  the  Church  and  the 
West  from  the  Byzantine  yoke. — His  relations  with  the  Franks  and 
THE  Burgundians  :  Virgilius  of  Aries  ;  Brunebaut ;  letter  to  the  young 
king  Childebert. — Celebrated  charter  of  Autun,  in  which  the  temporal 
supremacy  of  the  Papacy  over  royalty  is  proclaimed. — Relations  with  the 
bishops  of  Neustria.— His  respect  for  the  episcopate  and  for  the  freedom 
of  episcopal  elections. — His  vast  correspondence  :  universal  vigilance. — 
VOL.  XL  A 


2  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Order  re-established  in  St.  Peter's  patrimony.— He  protects  peasants,  free- 
men, slaves,  Jews. — His  conduct  towards  the  pagans  and  the  Donatists. — 
Services  rendered  to  the  Liturgy  and  religious  art  :  Gregorian  Chants ; 
musical  education.— Ridiculous  slander  respecting  his  antipathy  to  classical 
literature.- His  writings  :  The  Sacramentary ,  The  Pastoral,  The  Morals  : 
letters  and  homilies.  — He  is  the  fourth  great  doctor  of  the  Church.— His 
extreme  humility.— He  remains  always  a  monk,  and  renders  the  most 
signal  services  to  the  monastic  order  :  he  confirms  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict 
at  the  Council  of  Rome,  and  shields  the  liberty  and  property  of  the  monks. 
— Exemptions.— Rigorous  distinction  between  monastic  life  and  the  eccle- 
siastical state.— Monastic  discipline  is  reformed  and  enforced.— History  of 
Venantius,  the  married  monk.— Nunneries.— Gregory  watches  over  the 
freedom  and  sincerity  of  vocations.  — Catella,  the  young  slave.— The  Abbey 
of  Classe,  at  Ravenna,  protected  against  the  metropolitan  ;  monastic  foun- 
dations in  Isauria  and  Jerusalem.— He  always  regrets  the  cloistral  life, 
and  habitually  surrounds  himself  with  monks  ;  he  makes  them  bishops  and 
legates.— Charities  and  monastic  hospitality.— His  cruel  sufferings ;  his 
last  letters.  — He  dies.— Ingratitude  of  the  Romans.— He  is  avenged  by 
posterity. — His  true  greatness. 

The  Monks  in  Spain  :  origin  of  the  order  in  Spain  conquered  by  the 
Arian  Visigoths. — St.  Donatus,  St.  Emilian,  St.  Martin  of  Dumes.— St. 
Leander,  monk  and  bishop  of  Seville.— School  of  Seville.— Martyrdom  of 
Hermenegild  ;  exile  of  Leander  :  he  meets  St.  Gregory  at  Constantinople  ; 
their  mutual  tenderness. — Conversion  of  King  Recarede  and  of  the  Visigoth 
nation,  under  the  auspices  of  Leander:  their  relations  with  Gregory. — 
The  family  of  Leander  :  his  sister  Florentine.— His  brother  Isadore  :  action 
of  the  latter  on  the  monastic  order  and  Spain  ;  his  writings.— St.  Braulius. 
— Visigothic  formula  of  monastic  foundations.— School  of  Toledo  :  Abbey 
of  Agali. — Ildefonso  of  Toledo,  monk  and  bishop,  the  most  popular  saint 
of  that  period.— Councils  of  Toledo :  part  played  by  the  bishops  ;  inter- 
vention of  the  laity :  decrees  and  doctrines  upon  royalty. — Harshness 
against  the  Jews.  —The  Fucro  Juezgo,  issued  by  the  Councils  of  Toledo. — 
King  Wamba  made  monk  in  spite  of  himself. — Monastic  extension  in  Lusi- 
tania. — St.  Fructuosus  and  his  hind. — The  monks  dwell  on  the  shores  of 
the  Ocean  waiting  for  the  conquest  and  invasion  of  the  New  World. 


BOOK   V 

ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 


Quemadmodum  radii  solis  contingunt  quidem  terram,  sed  ibi  sunt  unde 
mittuntur,  sic  animus  magnus  et  sacer,  et  in  hoc  demissus  ut  pro- 
pius  divina  nossemus,  conversatur  quidem  nobiscum,  sed  hferet  ori- 
gini  suEe  ;  illinc  pendet,  illinc  spectat  ac  nititur. — Seneca,  £pist.  41. 


I. — Monastic  Italy  in  the  Sixth  Century. 

Even  before  the  death  of  Benedict,  the  most  illustrious  of 
his  contemporaries  had  sought  in  monastic  life  an  interval 
of  repose  and  freedom  between  his  public  career  and  his 
grave.  Cassiodorus,  who  had  been  for  thirty  yefrs  the 
honour  and  light  of  the  Gothic  monarchy,  the  minister  and 
the  friend  of  five  kings,  abandoned  the  court  of  Ravenna 
and  all  his  offices  and  dignities,^  towards  the  year  538,  to 
found,  at  the  extremity  of  Italy,  a  monastery  called  Viviers 
(  Vivaria),  which  at  one  time  seemed  destined  to  rival  Monte 
Cassino  itself  in  importance. 

Cassiodorus  belonged  to  the  high  Roman  nobility :  his 
ancestors  had  seats  at  once  in  the  senates  of  Rome  and 
Constantinople.  His  fortune  was  immense.  Successively 
a  senator,  a  quaestor,  and  prefect  of  the  pretorium,  he  was 
the  last  of  the  great  men  who  held  the  office  of  consul, 
which  Justinian  abolished.  He  obtained,  finally,  that  title 
of  patrician  which  Clovis  and  Charlemagne  considered  them- 

^  "Repulsis   in   Ravennati    urbe   soUicitudinibus   dignitatum  et   curis 
ssecularibus." — Cassiod.,  Prcsf.  in  Psalm. 
3 


4  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

selves  honoured  in  receiving.  His  credit  survived  all  the 
revolutions  of  that  terrible  age.  He  was  successively  the 
minister  of  Odoacer,  of  Theodoric,  of  his  daughter  Amala- 
sontha,  and  of  his  grandson  Athalaric,  who  made  him  prefect 
of  the  pretorium.  He  retained  that  office  under  the  kings 
Theodatus  and  Vitiges.  He  allied  in  his  own  person  the 
virtues  of  the  old  Romans  to  those  of  the  new  Christians, 
as  in  his  titles  the  dignities  of  the  republic  were  conjoined 
to  those  of  the  empire.  Full  of  respect  for  the  popes  and 
bishops,  he  was  also  full  of  solicitude  for  the  people.  An 
intelligent  and  courageous  mediator  between  the  Barbarian 
conquerors  and  the  conquered  population,  he  was  able  to 
give  to  the  Ostrogoth  royalty  that  protecting  and  civilising 
character  which  it  retained  for  some  time. 

To  him  must  be  attributed  the  finest  portion  of  the  great 
reign  of  Theodoric,  who  would  have  deserved  to  be  the  fore- 
runner of  Charlemagne,  if  he  had  contracted  with  the  Church 
that  alliance  which  alone  could  guarantee  and  fertilise  the 
future.  But,  although  an  Arian,  this  great  prince  long  pro- 
tected the  religious  liberty  of  the  Catholics  ;  and  during  the 
greater  part  of  his  reign,  the  Church  gained  more  by  his 
benevolent  indifference  than  by  the  oppressive  and  trifling 
intervention  of  the  crowned  theologians  who  reigned  in  By- 
zantium. Influenced  by  his  pious  and  orthodox  minister,  he 
said,  nobly  and  wisely,  that  to  him,  as  king,  nothing  beyond 
reverence  with  regard  to  ecclesiastical  affairs  pertained.-^ 
Cassiodorus,  who  filled  the  office  of  chancellor  under  him, 
showed  in  his  official  acts  the  great  principles  he  held,  and 
which  most  Christian  doctors  up  to  that  time  had  appealed  to. 
"  We  cannot,"  said  he,  in  the  name  of  Theodoric,  "  com- 
mand religion,  for  no  man  can  be  forced  to  believe  against 
his  will ; "  ^  and  to  one  of  his  successors,  "  Since  God  suffers 

^  "  Nee  aliquid  ad  se  prjeter  reverentiam  de  ecclesiasticis  negotiis 
pertinere." 

-  "  Religionem  imperare  non  possumus,  quia  nemo  cogitur  ut  credat 
invitus.''  —Letter  oj  Theodoric  to  the  Jews,  ap.  Cassiod.,  lib.  ii.  ep.  27. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  5 

several  religions,  we  dare  not  impose  one  alone.  We  re- 
member to  have  read,  that  a  sacrifice  to  God  must  be  made 
voluntarily,  and  not  in  obedience  to  a  master.  A  man  who 
attempts  to  act  otherwise  evidently  opposes  himself  to  the 
Divine  commands."  ^  Two  centuries  after  the  peace  of  the 
Church,  he  continued  thus  faithful  to  the  great  apologists 
of  the  time  of  the  imperial  persecutions  :  to  Tertullian,  who 
said,  "Religion  forbids  us  to  constrain  any  one  to  be  re- 
ligious ;  she  would  have  consent,  and  not  constraint ;  "  "  and 
to  Lactantius,  according  to  whom,  "  To  defend  religion,  one 
must  know  how  to  die,  and  not  how  to  kill."  ^ 

Afterwards,  when,  unfaithful  to  his  earliest  policy,  Theo- 
doric  arrogated  to  himself  the  right  of  interfering  in  the 
election  of  the  Roman  pontiffs — when  he  had  dishonoured 
the  end  of  his  career  by  cruelties  of  which  Boethius,  Sym- 
machus,  and  the  holy  pope,  John  L,  were  victims — when 
his  daughter  Amalasontha,  whose  reign  was  so  happy  for 
Italy,  had  perished  by  assassination  —  Cassiodorus,  who, 
amongst  all  those  crimes,  had  devoted  all  his  energies  and 
perseverance  to  preserve  authority  from  its  own  excesses,  t<^ 
soften  the  manners  of  the  Goths,  and  guarantee  the  rights 
of  the  Romans,  grew  weary  of  that  superhuman  task.  No 
danger  nor  disgrace  threatened  him,  for  all  the  sovereigns 
who,  after  Theodoric,  succeeded  each  other  on  the  bloody 
throne  of  Ravenna,  seem  to  have  vied  in  seeking  or  conciliat- 
ing him ;  but  he  had  experienced  enough  of  it.  He  was 
nearly  seventy  years  old  ;  fifty  years  had  been  passed  in  the 
most  elevated  employments ;  he  had  wielded  a  power  almost 

1  "  Cum  Divinitas  patiatur  diversas  religiones  esse,  nos  nnam  non  aude- 
mus  imponere.  Retenimus  enim  legisse  nos  voluntarie  sacrificandum 
esse  Domino,  non  cujusquam  cogentis  imperio.  Quod  qui  aliter  facere 
tentaverit,  evidenter  coelestibus  jussionibus  obviavit." — Letter  of  Theodatus 
to  Justinian,  ap.  Cassiod.,  lib.  x.  ep.  26. 

"  "Non  est  religionis  cogere  religionem,  qua;  sponte  suscipi  debet,  non 
vi." — Ad  Scapulam,  in  fin. 

'  "  Defendenda  religio  est  non  occidendo,  sed  moriendo ;  non  s^vitia, 
sed  patientia  ;  non  scelere,  sed  fide." 


6  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

sovereign,  but  always  tempered  by  reason  and  faith.  He 
resolved  to  end  his  life  in  monastic  solitude.  "With  him 
disappeared  the  glory  and  prosperity  of  the  kingdom  of  the 
Goths  in  Italy. 

This  was  the  first,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Eoman 
empire,  of  these  striking  conversions,  an  innumerable  series 
of  which  will  pass  before  our  eyes,  which,  even  in  the  highest 
ranks  of  the  new  society,  sought  out  the  great  ones  of  the 
world,  to  teach  them  how  to  expiate  their  grandeur,  to  rest 
from  their  power,  and  to  put  an  interval  between  the  agita- 
tions of  the  world  and  the  judgment  of  God. 

But  in  assuming  the  monastic  frock,  Cassiodorus  seems 
to  have  recommenced  to  live.  This  religious  profession 
offered  as  many  attractions  to  his  soul  as  employments  to 
his  activity.  The  monastery  of  Viviers,  which  he  had  built 
on  the  patrimonial  estate  where  he  was  born,  at  the  ex- 
tremity of  Calabria,  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Squillace, 
took  its  name  from  numerous  vivaria,  or  fish-ponds,  which 
had  been  hollowed  in  the  rock.  It  was  a  delightful  dwell- 
ing, which  he  has  described  affectionately  in  terms  worthy 
of  that  delicious  region,  where  the  azure  sea  bathes  a  shore 
clad  with  incomparable  and  perpetual  verdure.  The  build- 
ing was  vast  and  magnificent ;  at  a  distance  it  appeared 
like  an  entire  town.  There  were  two  monasteries  for  the 
numerous  disciples  who  collected  round  the  illustrious  old 
man.  Besides  these,  some  who  believed  themselves  called 
to  a  life  more  austere  than  that  of  the  cenobites  whose 
dwelling  extended  along  the  smiling  shores  of  the  sea,  found, 
by  ascending  the  mountain  which  overlooked  them,  isolated 
cells  where  they  could  taste  in  all  its  purity  the  delight  of 
absolute  solitude.'^ 

Cassiodorus  himself,  successively  a  monk  and  abbot, 
passed    nearly   thirty   years    in    that    retreat,    occupied    in 

1  "  Habetis  Montis  Castelli  secreta  suavia,  ubi,  velut  anachoretse,  prse- 
stante  Domino,  feliciter  esse  possitis,  ...  si  prius  in  corde  vestro  praepa- 
ratus  sit  adscensus."— Cassiod.,  De  Instit.  Divin.  Litter.,  c.  19. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  7 

governing  his  community,  and  uniting  the  study  of  litera- 
ture and  science  with  the  pursuit  of  spiritual  life.  During 
his  political  career,  he  had  made  use  of  his  power,  with 
energy  and  solicitude,  to  maintain  public  education  and 
intellectual  life  in  that  poor  Italy,  which  was  periodically 
overrun  by  floods  of  ignorant  and  rude  conquerors.  He  has 
been  declared,  not  without  reason,  the  hero  and  restorer  of 
knowledge  in  the  sixth  century.^  As  soon  as  he  became  a 
monk,  he  made  his  monastery  a  kind  of  Christian  academy, 
and  the  principal  centre  of  the  literary  activity  of  his  time. 
He  had  there  collected  an  immense  library ;  he  imposed 
upon  his  monks  a  complete  and  severe  plan  of  study.  His 
own  example  enforced  his  precepts ;  he  instructed  them 
with  unwearied  zeal  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  for  the  study 
of  which  he,  in  concert  with  Pope  Agapetus,  had  attempted 
in  vain  to  establish  public  professors  in  Rome.  He  added 
to  this  the  study  of  the  seven  liberal  arts,  and  profane  litera- 
ture in  general.  It  was  at  Viviers  that  he  composed  most 
of  his  works,  and  especially  his  famous  Treatise  upon  the 
Teaching  of  Sacred  Literature^"  a  kind  of  elementary  ency- 
clopaedia, which  was  the  code  of  monastic  education,  and 
served  long  as  a  programme  to  the  intellectual  education 
of  the  new  nations.  At  eighty-three  he  had  the  courage 
to  commence  a  treatise  upon  orthography,  in  order  to  assist 
in  the  correction  of  ancient  copies  of  the  holy  books. 

Cassiodorus  thus  gave,  amid  his  numerous  community, 
one  of  the  first  and  most  illustrious  models  of  that  alliance 
of  monastic  and  intellectual  life  which  has  distinguished  the 
monastic  order.  The  literary  enthusiasm  which  inspired  the 
noble  old  man  served  only  to  redouble  his  zeal  for  the  strict 
observance  of  monastic  regularity.  "  God  grant  to  us 
grace,"  he  wrote,  "  to  be  like  the  untiring  oxen  to  cultivate 

1  F.  DE  Sainte-Maethe,  Vie  de  Cassiodore,  1684.  Compare  Mabillon, 
Annal.  Bened.,  lib.  v.  c.  24,  27. 

-  De  Institutione  Divinarum  Litterarum.  "  Quein  monachi  omnes  accurate 
legere  deberent." — Mabillon,  I.  c. 


8  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

the  field  of  our  Lord  with  the  plough  of  observance  and 
regular  exercises."  ^  It  is  scarcely  known  what  rule  he 
adopted.  Some  have  believed  that  it  was  that  of  St.  Bene- 
dict ;  but  he  has  made  no  special  mention  of  it  in  recom- 
mending his  monks  to  follow  the  rules  of  the  Fathers 
generally,  along  with  the  orders  of  their  own  superior,  and 
to  consult  the  institutes  of  Cassianus.^  However,  a  strong 
analogy  may  at  least  be  recognised  between  the  usages 
practised  at  Viviers  and  the  great  example  of  St.  Benedict, 
in  the  directions  given  by  Cassiodorus  on  the  subject  of 
manual  labour.  He  desires  that  those  who  are  not  capable 
of  study,  or  of  transcribing  manuscript,  should  apply  them- 
selves to  agriculture  and  gardening,  especially  for  the  relief 
of  guests  and  of  the  infirm.^  Like  Benedict,  he  recom- 
mended them  to  bestow  an  affectionate  solicitude  upon 
travellers,  and  upon  the  poor  and  sick  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Like  Benedict,  he  desired  that  the  cultivators  of  monastic 
lands  should  share  in  the  temporal  and  spiritual  wellbeing 
of  monastic  life.  "  Instruct  your  peasants  in  good  morals ; 
oppress  them  not  with  heavy  or  new  burdens  ;  call  them 
often  to  your  festivals,  that  they  may  not  blush,  if  there  is 
occasion  for  it,  for  belonging  to  you,  and  yet  resembling  you 
so  little."  ^  In  short,  he  seems  to  follow  the  rule  of  Bene- 
dict, even  in  its  least  details,  in  that  which  concerns  the 
nocturnal  and  almost  perpetual  psalms  which  characterised 
monastic  worship,  and  which  he  explains  as  follows  to  his 
numerous  disciples  :  "  During  the  silence  of  night,  the  voices 
of  men  bursting  forth  in  chants  and  in  words  sung  by  art 
and  measure  brings  us  back  to  Him  from  whom  the  divine 
word  came  to  us,  for  the  salvation  of  the  human  race.  .  .  . 
All  who  sing  form  but  a  single  voice,  and  we  mingle  our 
music  with  the  praises  of  God,  chanted  by  angels,  although 
we  cannot  hear  them."  ^ 

1  In  Prmf.  Explic.  Psalm.  2  Dg  Div.  Litt.,  C.  32  and  29. 

^  Ibid.,  c.  28.  *  Ibid.,  c.  32. 

Prcefat.  in  Psalter. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  9 

Into  the  same  region  where  the  Eoman  minister  of  the 
Gothic  kingdom  completed  his  glorious  career,  but  beyond 
these  Straits  of  Faro,  which  doubtless  exhibited  then,  as 
now,  an  enchanting  scene  of  nature,  other  monks  had  like- 
wise penetrated.  The  cherished  disciple  of  St.  Benedict, 
the  son  of  the  rich  senator  who  had  so  generously  endowed 
the  new-born  community  of  Subiaco,  the  young  Placidus, 
had  brought  to  Sicily  the  name  and  rule  of  his  master.  He 
had  been  sent  there  to  recover  the  eighteen  estates  situated 
in  that  island,  which  his  father  had  given  to  the  abbot  of 
Monte  Cassino,  and  the  profits  of  which  had  been  lost  by 
unfaithful  stewardship.  He  remained  there,  and  established 
towards  the  year  534,  at  Messina,  the  first  Benedictine 
monastery  which  was  formed  out  of  Italy.  Placidus  col- 
lected there  thirty  monks,  but  was  too  soon  interrupted  in 
his  work  of  religious  colonisation.-^  He  perished  with  two 
of  his"  brethren  and  his  young  sister  Flavia,  tortured  and 
slain  by  a  band  of  Moorish  pirates,  still  pagans,  and  who, 
like  so  many  other  ruffians,  made  the  monks  the  principal 
victims  of  their  fury.  The  children  of  St.  Benedict  inaugu- 
rated thus  the  long  series  of  their  struggles  and  victories. 
The  blood  of  Placidus  watered  the  seeds  of  the  order  in 
Sicily,  where  its  harvest,  even  up  to  our  own  days,  has  been 
so  abundant.^ 

We  have  said  that  the  monks  came  to  replace  the  martyrs, 
bufc  that  often  also  they  imitated  and  joined  their  band.  It 
was  thus  during  the  rise  of  the  Benedictine  order  in  Italy. 
Its  extension  was  rapid  during  the  last  years  of  Benedict's 
life,  and  especially  after  his  death.     The  tomb  where  the  holy 

^  We  do  not  venture  to  relate  here  many  verj'  interesting  features  in  the 
life  of  the  first  disciple  of  St.  Benedict,  because  his  Acts,  attributed  to  one 
of  his  companions,  the  monk  Gordian,  have  undergone  very  numerous 
interpolations,  according  to  the  unanimous  opinion  of  Baronius,  Mabillon, 
and  the  Bollandists. 

2  There  were  at  that  time,  and  subsequently,  many  monasteries  in  Sicily 
inhabited  by  Greek  monks,  who  followed  the  rule  of  St.  Basil. — Yepes, 
Chronica  General.,  ii.  2. 


lO  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

remains  of  the  great  legislator  rested,  under  the  guardian- 
ship of  a  line  of  fervent  disciples  constantly  renewed,  became 
the  spring  from  which  a  new  life  flowed  forth  upon  the  penin- 
sula.-^ Most  of  the  ancient  monasteries  adopted  the  rule 
which  flourished  at  Monte  Cassino.  It  spread  through 
Latium  in  the  environs  of  Lake  Fucino,  where  the  holy 
abbot  Equitius,  shod  with  nailed  shoes,  made  hay  with  his 
monks,  and  returned,  after  the  hot  and  laborious  day,  with 
his  scythe  on  his  shoulder  like  any  other  labourer."  It  was 
carried  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Soracte,  where  more  than 
one  brave  solitary,  well  worthy  of  practising  it,  waited  its 
coming,  and  where  the  gentle  prior  Nonnosus  laboured  on  the 
rocky  sides  of  the  mountain  celebrated  by  Virgil  and  Horace, 
to  make  gardens  and  olive  orchards  for  the  use  of  his 
brethren.^  It  prevailed  in  several  of  the  twenty-two  re- 
ligious houses  v^^hich  already  existed  at  Rome.*  It  soon 
extended  into  the  isles  of  the  Mediterranean  and  Adriatic, 
which  we  have  seen  to  be  already  occupied  by  monks,  and 
especially  into  those  which  lay  near  the  coast  of  Naples, 
whither,  under  the  hideous  tyranny  of  the  first  Ceesars,  men 
accused  of  high  treason  had  been  banished,  and  where  the 
love  of  heavenly  things  and  spiritual  freedom  retained  many 
voluntary  exiles.  Thus,  throughout  the  whole  peninsula, 
numerous  companies  of  monks  laboriously  struggled,  amidst 
the  general  confusion,  against  the  depravity  of  Eoman  man- 
ners, against  the  violence  of  the  Barbarians.  Their  lives 
afforded  these  lessons  of  austere  virtue  and  miraculous 
power,  the  memory  of  which  St.  Gregory  the  Great  has 
associated  in  his  Dialogues  with   that  of  their  holy  patri- 

^  "  Te  monachoram  turbse  diu  noctuque  concelebrant,  corpus  tunm  in 
medio  positum  servantes,  quod  largos  miraculorum  fluvios  effudit." — 
Menkes  de  I'Eglise  Grccquc,  ap.  DoM  Gueeangek,  Careme,  p.  581. 

2  "  Clavatis  calceatus  caligis,  falcem  ferrariam  in  colic  deferens  venie- 
bat."— S.  Greg.,  Dial.,  lib.  4. 

^  V.  S.  Gregor.,  Dial.,  lib.  i.  c.  7,  on  Nonnosus  and  Anastasius. 

^  Baronius,  Martyrol. ,  5  Dec.  Amongst  these  the  monasteries  of  St. 
Sabas  and  St.  Erasmus  held  the  first  rank. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  II 

arch.  They  died  as  they  had  lived,  and  braved  martyrdom 
in  public  places  as  well  as  in  the  depth  of  woods.  Upon 
the  faith  of  that  great  doctor,  the  faithful  have  related  from 
generation  to  generation,  how  the  monk  Herculanus,  Bishop 
of  Perugia,  when  that  city  was  besieged  and  destroyed  by 
the  Goths  under  Totila,  was  sacrificed  amid  tortures,  as  the 
principal  author  of  the  resistance  ;  how,  in  the  Roman  Cam- 
pagna,  the  abbot  Suranus  was  slain  by  the  Lombards,  who 
found  him  hidden  in  the  hollow  of  an  oak ;  and  how,  else- 
where, the  same  Lombards  hung  the  monks,  two  by  two,  to 
the  same  tree.^ 

For  the  Lombards  were  already  there.  Scarcely  had  the 
Goths,  who  fell  into  their  premature  decay  after  Theodoric 
and  Cassiodorus,  disappeared,  when  a  new  race  of  Barbarians 
crossed  the  Alps  and  descended  upon  Italy.  They  were 
proud,  intelligent,  and  warlike,  Arian  by  name,  but  still, 
in  fact,  half-pagan,  and  a  thousand  times  more  cruel  and 
dreaded  than  the  Goths."  Under  Alboin  and  his  succes- 
sors they  ravaged  the  peninsula  without  pity,  trampling 
under  foot  Greeks  and  Romans,  Catholics  and  Arians, 
priests  and  laymen.  Ruined  cities,  desecrated  churches, 
murdered  bishops  and  clergy,  and  exterminated  nations, 
were  everywhere  seen  in  their  track.^  These  ferocious  con- 
querors reaped  everything,  and  left  only  a  desert  behind 
them.  The  end  of  the  world  was  supposed  to  have  come. 
They  were  especially  furious  against  monks  and  monasteries. 
They  burned  and  destroyed,  among  others,  two  considerable 
abbeys,  the  origin  of  which  is  unknown  :  Novalese,  situated 
upon  a  plateau  on  the  south  side  of  the  Piedmontese  Alps  ; 

^  S.  Greg.,  Dial,  iv.  21. 

2  Their  first  invasion  took  place  in  568,  at  the  solicitation  of  Narses. 

3  Anastasius,  Liber  Pontif.,  c.  32. 

4  "  Mox  effera  gens  Longobardorum  de  vagina  suas  habitationis  educta 
in  nostram  cervicem  grassata  est,  atque  humanum  genus  .  .  .  succisum 
aruit.  .  .  .  Depopulate  urbes,  .  .  .  destructa  monasteria  virorum  ac  femi- 
narum,  .  .  .  occupaverunt  bestise  loca  quje  prius  multitude  bominum 
tenebat." — S.  Greggr.  Magn.,  Dial.,  iii.  38,  EpisL,  iii.  29. 


12  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

and  Farfa,  which  imagined  itself  secure,  hid  among  the  fresh 
foliage  of  the  Sabine  woods,  sung  by  Ovid — 

"  Et  amosnpe  Farfaris  umbrae." 

These  names,  destined  to  be  so  celebrated  in  religious 
history,  yet  the  first  appearance  of  which  is  marked  by 
disaster,  must  be  noted. 

A  great  number  of  monks  received  martyrdom  from  the 
hands  of  these  new  persecutors  ;  others,  hunted  from  their 
first  asylum,  and  wandering  through  the  different  parts  of 
Italy,  carried  with  them  the  seeds  of  monastic  life  into 
countries  which,  without  that  storm,  they  might  never  have 
reached. 

Finally,  tie  Lombards  ascended  Monte  Cassino,  and  pil- 
laged and  burned  that  already  famous  sanctuary,  according 
to  the  prediction  of  Benedict,  forty  years  before ;  but,  as  he 
had  also  predicted,^  they  could  destroy  nothing  which  had 
life,  and  did  not  take  a  single  monk.  Although  the  attack 
of  the  Lombards  took  place  by  night,  and  while  the  monks 
were  asleep,  they  were  all  able  to  flee,  bearing  with  them, 
as  their  entire  fortune,  the  rule  written  by  their  founder, 
with  the  measure  of  wine  and  the  pound  of  bread  which  he 
had  prescribed.^  They  took  refuge  at  Rome  ;  Pope  Pelagius 
11.^  gave  them  a  paternal  reception,  and  permitted  them  to 
build,  near  the  Lateran  palace,  a  monastery  in  which  the 
children  of  Benedict  were  to  await  for  a  century  and  a  half 
the  happy  day  which  was  to  witness  their  return  to  their 
holy  mountain.* 

^  "  Res,  non  animas." — Ejnst.,  iv.  17. 

^  In  580,  under  Bonitus,  fourth  abbot  after  St.  Benedict. 

^  According  to  Yepes  and  some  other  authors,  this  pope,  like  his  prede- 
cessor, Benedict  I.,  was  a  monk  ;  but  we  find  no  proof  of  this  assertion. 

•*  They  only  returned  to  Monte  Cassino  about  730,  under  the  abbot 
Petronatius. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 


II. — Gregory  the  Great,  Monk  and  Pope. 

But  ere  long  a  monk  ascended  for  the  first  time  the 
apostolical  See.  This  monk,  the  most  illustrious  of  all  those 
who  have  been  reckoned  among  the  sovereign  pontiffs,  was 
to  shine  there  with  a  splendour  which  none  of  his  prede- 
cessors had  equalled,  and  which  flowed  back,  like  a  supreme 
sanction,  upon  the  institute  from  which  he  came.  Gregory, 
who  alone  among  men  has  received,  by  universal  consent,  the 
double  surname  of  Saint  and  Great,  will  be  an  everlasting 
honour  to  the  Benedictine  order  as  to  the  papacy.  By  his 
genius,  but  especially  by  the  charm  and  ascendancy  of  his 
virtue,  he  was  destined  to  organise  the  temporal  power  of  the 
popes,  to  develop  and  regulate  their  spiritual  sovereignty,  to 
found  their  paternal  supremacy  over  the  new-born  crowns 
and  races  which  were  to  become  the  great  nations  of  the 
future,  and  to  be  called  France,  Spain,  and  England.  It 
was  he,  indeed,  who  inaugurated  the  middle  ages,  modern 
society,  and  Christian  civilisation.^ 

Issued,  like  St.  Benedict,  from  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
races  of  ancient  Rome,  the  son  of  a  rich  senator,  and  descen- 
dant of  Pope  Felix  III.,  of  the  Anicia  family,^  Gregory  was 
early  called  to  filled  a  dignified  place,  which,  in  the  midst  of 
modern  Rome,  the  vassal  of  Byzantium,  and  subject  to  the 
ceaseless  insults  of  the  Barbarians,  retained  some  shadow  of 
ancient  Roman  grandeur.  He  was  preetor  of  Rome  during 
the  first  invasions  of  the  Lombards  and  the  religious  troubles 
stirred  up  by  the  fifth  general  council.  In  the  exercise  of 
this  oflSce  he  gained  the  hearts  of  the  Romans,  while  habitu- 
ating himself  to  the  management  of  public  business,  and 
while  acquiring  a  taste  for  luxury  and  display  of  earthly 
grandeur,  in  which   he   still   believed   he  might  serve  God 

^  Compare  DoM  PiTRA,  Histoire  de  St.  Leger,  Introduction. 
^  "  Ex  noblissima  et  antiquissima  Aniciorum  familia." — Jo  AN.  DiAC. 
in  Vit.  S.  Greg.  Magn.     He  was  born  probably  in  540,  and  died  in  604. 


14  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

without  reproach.  But  God  required  him  elsewhere. 
Gregory  hesitated  long,  inspired  by  the  divine  breath,  but 
retained,  led  back  and  fascinated  to  the  world,  by  the  attrac- 
tions and  habits  of  secular  life.  At  last  he  yielded  to  the 
influence  of  his  intimate  and  close  relations  with  the  refugees 
of  Monte  Cassino,  the  successors  and  disciples  of  Benedict ;  ^ 
and  then,  obeying  the  grace  which  enlightened  him,  he 
abruptly  broke  every  tie,  devoted  his  wealth  to  the  en- 
dowment of  six  new  monasteries  in  Sicily,  and  established  in 
his  own  palace  in  Rome,  upon  the  Coelian  hill,  a  seventh, 
dedicated  to  St.  Andrew,  into  which  he  introduced  the 
Benedictine  rule,  and  where  he  himself  became  a  monk.2 
He  sold  all  that  remained  of  his  patrimony  to  distribute  it 
to  the  poor;  and  Rome,  which  had  seen  the  young  and 
wealthy  patrician  traverse  its  streets  in  robes  of  silk  covered 
with  jewels,  now  saw  him,  with  admiration,  clothed  like  a 
beggar,  serving,  in  his  own  person,  the  beggars  lodged  in 
the  hospital  which  he  had  built  at  the  gate  of  his  paternal 
house,  now  changed  into  a  monastery.^ 

Once  a  monk,  he  would  be  nothing  less  than  a  model  of 

1  "  Diu  longeque  conversionis  gratiam  distuli,  et  postquam  coelesti  sum 
desiderio  afflatus,  saeculari  habitu  contegi  melius  putavi.  Apparebatur 
enim  mihi  jam  de  aeternitatis  amore  quid  qusererem  :  sed  inolita  me  con- 
suetudo  devinxerat,  ne  exteriorem  cultum  mutarem.  Cumque  adhuc  me 
cogeret  animus  .  .  .  coeperunt  multa  me  ex  ejusdem  mundi  cura  succres- 
cere,  ut  in  eo  jam  non  specie,  sed,  quod  est  gravius,  mente  retinerer." — 
Prafat.  ad  Job.  The  Benedictines  who  brought  about  his  conversion  were 
Constantine,  disciple  and  successor  of  St.  Benedict  at  Monte  Cassino  ; 
Simplicius,  third  abbot  of  Monte  Cassino ;  and  Valentinian,  abbot  of 
Latran. 

2  "Mutato  repente  sfeculi  habitu."— Paul.  Diac,  Vit.  S.  Greg.,  c.  3. 
Yepes  and  Mabillon  have  proved  beyond  question,  against  Baronius,  that 
St.  Gregory  professed  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.— Jici.  SS.  0.  S.  B.  Prcef.  in 
1.  sccc.  §  vii.  See  also  his  life  by  his  Benedictine  editors,  lib.  1.  c.  3.  This 
monastery  of  St.  Andrew,  which  now  bears  the  name  of  St.  Gregory,  has 
been  since  given  to  the  Camaldules,  and  from  it,  thirteen  centuries  after, 
issued  another  Gregory,  pope  and  monk,  Gregory  XVI. 

'  "  Qui  ante  serico  contextu  ac  gemmis  micantibus  solitus  erat  per  urbem 
procedere  trabeatus,  post  vili  contectus  tegmine  ministrabat  pauper  ipse 
pauperibus."— Paul.  Diac,  c.  2. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT  1 5 

monks,  and  practised  with  the  utmost  rigour  all  the  austeri- 
ties sanctioned  by  the  rule,  applying  himself  specially  at  the 
same  time  to  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  He  ate 
only  pulse  which  his  mother,  who  had  become  a  nun  since 
her  widowhood,  sent  him  to  his  convent,  already  soaked,  in 
a  silver  porringer.  This  porringer  was  the  only  remnant 
of  his  ancient  splendour,  and  did  not  remain  long  in  his 
hands,  for  one  day  a  shipwrecked  sailor  came  several  times 
to  beg  from  him  while  he  was  writing  in  his  cell,  and  finding 
no  money  in  his  purse,  he  gave  him  that  relic  of  his  former 
wealth.  Long  after,  Gregory  saw  the  shipwrecked  man, 
who  appeared  to  him  under  the  form  of  his  guardian  angel, 
and  instructed  him  that  from  that  day  God  had  destined 
him  to  govern  His  Church,  and  to  be  the  successor  of  Peter, 
whose  charity  he  had  imitated.-^ 

Continually  engaged  in  prayer,  reading,  writing,  or  dic- 
tation, he  persisted  in  pushing  the  severity  of  his  fasts  to 
such  an  extent  that  his  health  succumbed,  and  his  life 
itself  was  in  danger.  He  fell  so  often  into  fainting  fits, 
that  more  than  once,  as  he  himself  relates,  he  should  have 
sunk  under  them,  had  not  his  brethren  supported  him  with 
more  substantial  food.^  In  consequence  of  having  attempted 
to  do  more  than  others,  he  was  soon  obliged  to  relinquish 
even  the  most  ordinary  fasts,  which  everybody  observed. 
He  was  in  despair  at  not  being  able  to  fast  even  upon 
Easter  eve,  a  day  on  which  even  the  little  children  fast, 
says  his  biographer  :  and  aided  by  the  prayers  of  a  holy 
abbot  of  Spoleto  who  had  become  a  monk  with  him  at  St. 
Andrea,  he  obtained  from  God  the  grace  of  strength  to 
observe  that   fast    at    least.      But    he    remained  weak    and 

1  "  Crudis  leguminibus  pascebatur.  .  .  .  Matris  argenteam  quse  cum 
infusis  leguminibus  mitti  solita  erat.  .  .  .  Ego  sum  naufragus  ille  qui 
quondam  veni  ad  te,  quando  scribebas  in  cella.  .  .  .  Ab  illo  destinavit  te 
Dominus  fieri  prsesulem  S.  suse  Ecclesize." — Joan.  Diacon.,  Vit.  S.  Greg., 
i.  lo,  and  ii.  23. 

-  "  Nisi  me  frequenter  fratres  cibo  reficerent,  vitalis  mihi  spiritus  fundi- 
tus  intercidi  videretur." — Dial.,  iii.  3^. 


1 6  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

sickly  all  his  life,  and  when  he  left  his  monastery,  it  was 
with  health  irreparably  ruined. 

Pope  Benedict  I.  drew  him  first  from  the  cloister  in  577, 
to  raise  him  to  the  dignity  of  one  of  the  seven  cardinal- 
deacons  or  rcgionaries,  who  presided  over  the  seven  principal 
divisions  of  Rome.  He  yielded,  against  his  own  will,  to 
the  authority  of  the  pontiff.  "  When  a  ship,"  said  he,  "  is 
not  well  moored  in  port,  the  storm  seizes  it,  even  on  the 
most  secure  coast.  Thus  I  am  plunged  again  into  the 
ocean  of  the  world,  under  an  ecclesiastical  pretext.  I  leam 
to  appreciate  the  peace  of  the  monastery  by  losing  it,  though 
I  have  not  been  sufficiently  careful  of  defending  while  I 
possessed  it."^  It  was  still  worse  when  Pope  Pelagius  II. 
sent  him,  as  Apocrisiarius  or  Nuncio,  to  the  Emperor 
Tiberius.  During  this  involuntary  absence  he  was  accom- 
panied by  several  monks  of  the  community,  devoting  him- 
self with  them  to  study  and  reading,  and  following,  as  much 
as  possible,  all  the  observances  of  the  rule.  "  By  their 
example,"  he  wrote,  "  I  attach  myself  to  the  coast  of  prayer, 
as  with  the  cable  of  an  anchor,  while  my  soul  is  tossed  upon 
the  waves  of  public  life."  ^ 

He  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office,  nevertheless,  with 
reputation  and  success,  re-established  between  the  Holy  See 
and  the  Byzantine  court  the  friendly  relations  which  had 
been  interrupted  by  the  Lombard  invasion,  and  neglected 
no  means  to  obtain  from  Tiberius  and  his  successor,  Maurice, 
the  help  demanded  by  Rome  and  Italy  against  the  terrible 
invasions,  and  the  more  and  more  oppressive  domination,  of 
the  Lombards.  He  also  learnt  to  know  the  shifts  and  sub- 
terfuges which  the  Byzantine  spirit  already  employed  against 

1  "  Navem  incaute  religatam  .  .  .  tempestas  excutit ;  repente  me  sub 
pr^textu  ecclesiastici  ordinis  in  causarum  ssecularium  pelago  referi,  et 
quietem  monasterii,  quia  habendo  non  fortiter  tenui,  quam  stricte  tenenda 
fuerit,  perdendo  cognovi." — Prcefat.  ad  Job. 

2  "Ad  orationis  placidum  littus,  quasi  anchors  fune.  .  .  .  Dum  cau- 
sarum sEecularium  vertiginibus  fluctuaret." — Prcef.  Moralium.  Compare 
Dial.,  iii.  36 ;  JOAN.  DlAC,  i.  26 ;  Bede,  Hist.  Eccl.,  ii.  i. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  1 7 

Roman  unity  and  authority.  He  brought  the  patriarch 
Eutychus,  who  denied  the  actual  resurrection  of  the  body, 
to  an  edifying  retractation. 

After  six  years  of  this  honourable  and  laborious  exile,  he 
returned  to  Rome,  and  regained  the  peaceful  shelter  of  his 
monastery  of  St.  Andrea,  the  monks  of  which  elected  him 
abbot  soon  after  his  return.^  He  enjoyed  there  for  some 
time  longer  the  delights  of  the  life  which  he  had  chosen. 
Tenderly  cherished  by  his  brethren,  he  took  a  paternal 
share  in  their  trials  and  spiritual  crosses,  provided  for  their 
temporal  and  spiritual  necessities,  and  specially  rejoiced  in 
the  holy  death  of  several  among  them.  He  has  related  the 
details  of  these  in  his  Dialogues,  and  seems  to  breathe  in 
them  the  perfume  of  heaven.  But  the  affectionate  kind- 
ness which  always  inspired  him  did  not  prevent  him  from 
maintaining  with  scrupulous  severity  the  requirements  of 
the  rule.  He  threw  into  a  ditch  the  body  of  a  monk,  who 
had  been  a  skilful  physician,  and  in  whose  possession  three 
pieces  of  gold  were  found,  in  contempt  of  the  article  of  the 
rule  which  interdicted  all  individual  property.  The  three 
pieces  of  gold  were  thrown  upon  the  body,  in  presence  of 
all  the  monks,  whilst  they  repeated  aloud  the  words  of  the 
verse,  "  Pecunia  tua  tecum  sit  in  perditionem."  When  this 
act  of  justice  was  accomplished,  mercy  took  its  sway  once 
more  in  the  heart  of  the  abbot,  who  caused  mass  to  be 
celebrated  for  thirty  days  successively  to  deliver  this  poor 
soul  from  purgatory.^ 

This  tender  solicitude  for  souls  was  on  the  point  of 
separating  him  from  his  dear  monastery  and  from  Rome. 

'  The  chronological  order  of  these  first  events  in  the  public  life  of  St, 
Gregory  has  been  finally  established,  in  the  work  of  the  Mecklenburg  pastor, 
Lau,  Oregor  der  Grosse,  nach  seinem  Leben  und  seiner  Lehre  gescTiildert, 
Leipzig,  1845.  The  history  of  the  great  pontiff  is  there  written  with  eru- 
dition and  as  much  impartiality  as  can  be  looked  for  from  a  Protestant 
minister.  Compare  S.  Gregorii  Vita  ex  ejus  Scriptis  Adornata,  lib.  i.  c.  5, 
in  the  large  edition  of  his  works  by  the  Benedictines. 

2  Dial.,  vi.  55. 
VOL.  IL  B 


1 8  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Everybody  knows  how  he  saw  exhibited  in  the  market  some 
poor  pagan  children,  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  fairness, 
who  were  said  to  be  of  the  country  of  the  Angles,  to  which 
he  answered,  that  they  were  made  to  become  angels.^  On 
which  occasion,  hastening  to  the  pope,  he  begged  him  to 
send  missionaries  into  that  great  island  of  Britain,  where 
the  pagans  sold  such  slaves ;  failing  others,  offered  himself 
for  this  work ;  surprised  the  pontiff  into  consent,  and  pre- 
pared instantly  for  his  departure.  But  when  they  under- 
stood his  intention,  the  love  with  which  the  Romans  had 
formerly  regarded  him  was  re-awakened.  They  surrounded 
the  pope  as  he  went  to  St.  Peter's ;  they  cried  to  him, 
"  You  have  offended  St.  Peter ;  you  have  ruined  Rome  in 
allowing  Gregory  to  leave  us."  The  astonished  pope  yielded 
to  the  popular  voice.  He  sent  messengers  after  Gregory, 
who  overtook  him  at  three  days'  journey  from  Rome  ;  they 
led  him  back  forcibly  to  his  monastery.  It  was  not  as  a 
missionary,  but  as  a  pope,  that  he  was  to  win  England  to 
the  Church. 

In  590,  Pelagius  II.  died  of  the  plague,  which  then 
depopulated  Rome.  Gregory  was  immediately  elected  pope 
by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  senate,  the  people,  and  the 
clergy.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  refused,  and  appealed  to  the 
Emperor  Maurice  not  to  confirm  his  election.  The  Romans 
intercepted  his  letter  ;  the  imperial  confirmation  arrived. 
Then  he  disguised  himself,  and,  fleeing  from  Rome  to  seek 
some  unknown  retreat,  wandered  three  days  in  the  woods. 
He  was  followed,  discovered,  and  a  second  time  led  back  to 
Rome,  but  this  time  to  reign  there.  He  bowed  his  head, 
weeping,  under  the  yoke  imposed  upon  him  by  the  divine 
will,  and  the  unanimity  of  his  fellow-citizens.^ 


^  "Bene  Angli  quasi  angeli,  quia  angelicos  vultus  habent  et  tales  in 
coelis  angelorum  decet  esse  concives." — Joan.  Diac,  i.  21. 

^  "  Infirmitatis  mese  conscius  secretiora  loca  petere  decreveram.  .  .  . 
Jugo  conditoris  subdidi  cervicem." — Epist.,  vii.  4,  edit.  Benedict.  In  refer- 
ring to  the  epistles,  we  have  almost  always  followed  the  order  established 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  19 

It  was  during  the  interval  between  his  election  and  the 
imperial  confirmation  that,  in  the  hope  of  turning  back  the 
scourge  of  the  plague,  he  caused  the  famous  procession  of 
three  days  (in  which,  for  the  first  time,  all  the  abbots  of  the 
Roman  monasteries  appeared  with  their  monks,  and  all  the 
abbesses  with  their  nuns)  to  be  celebrated.  Whilst  these 
communities  defiled  before  Gregory,  he  saw  an  angel  appear 
upon  the  summit  of  the  Hadrian  Mole,  putting  back  his 
sword  into  its  sheath,  the  image  of  which,  standing  upon 
the  colossal  mausoleum,  has  given  its  name  to  the  Castle  of 
St.  Angelo,  and  perpetuated  to  our  own  day  the  recollection 
of  St.  Gregory's  vision,^ 

The  supreme  pontificate,  perhaps,  never  fell  upon  a  soul 
more  disturbed  and  afflicted  than  that  of  the  monk  who  saw 
himself  thus  condemned  to  exchange  the  peace  of  the  cloister 
for  the  cares  of  the  government  of  the  universal  Church,  and 
the  special  defence  of  the  interests  of  Italy,  Not  only  then, 
but  during  all  his  life,  he  did  not  cease  to  lament  his  fate. 
His  sadness  displayed  itself  first  in  his  answers  to  the  con- 
gratulations which  reached  him  from  all  quarters :  "  I  have 
lost,"  he  wrote  to  the  sister  of  the  emperor,  "  the  profound 
joys  of  repose.  I  seem  to  have  been  elevated  in  external 
things,  but  in  spiritual  I  have  fallen.  ...  I  endeavour 
daily  to  withdraw  from  the  world  and  from  the  flesh,  to  see 
heavenly  joys  in  the  spirit.  .  .  .  Neither  desiring  nor  fear- 
ing anything  in  this  world,  I  felt  myself  above  everything. 
But  the  storm  of  temptation  has  cast  me  all  at  once  among 
alarms  and  terrors ;  for,  though  still  I  fear  nothing  for 
myself,  I  fear  much  for  those  of  whom  I  have  the  charge."  ^ 
To  the  patrician  Narses  :  "  I  am  so  overcome  with  melan- 
in the  edition  of  the  Benedictines,  which  differs  considerably  from  the 
ancient  classification,  quoted  by  Mabillon,  Fleurs,  &c.  "  Decretum 
generalitatis  evadere  nequivit.  .  .  .  Capitur,  trahitur,  consecratur." — 
Joan.  DiAC,  Vit.  Greg.,  i.  41. 

1  Compare  Geeg.  Turonens.,  Hist.  Franc,  x.  i.  ;  Paul.  DlAC,  Be  Gest. 
Longob.,  iii.  25  ;  JoAN.  DlAC,  Vit.  Greg.,  i.  41. 

2  "  Alta  quietis  mese  gaudia  perdidi." — EpisL,  i.  5. 


20  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

choly,  that  I  can  scarcely  speak;  the  darkness  of  grief 
assails  the  eyes  of  my  soul ;  I  see  nothing  that  is  not  sad, 
and  everything  which  is  supposed  to  please  me  appears  to 
me  lamentable.  For  I  cannot  cease  to  see  from  what  a 
height  of  tranquillity  I  have  fallen,  and  to  what  a  height  of 
embarrassment  I  have  ascended."  ^  To  Andrew,  of  the  rank 
called  Illustrious :  "  When  you  hear  of  my  promotion  to  the 
episcopate,  weep,  if  you  love  me ;  for  there  are  so  many 
temporal  occupations  here,  that  I  find  myself  by  this  dignity 
almost  separated  from  the  love  of  God."  ^  To  the  patrician 
John,  who  had  contributed  to  his  election :  "  I  complain  of 
your  love,  which  has  drawn  me  from  the  repose  which  you 
know  I  sought.  God  reward  you  with  eternal  gifts  for 
your  good  intention,  but  I  pray  Him  deliver  me,  as  He 
shall  please,  from  so  many  perils;  for,  as  my  sins  deserve,  I 
have  become  bishop,  not  only  of  the  Romans,  but  of  these 
Lombards  who  acknowledge  only  the  right  of  the  sword, 
and  whose  favour  is  torture.  See  how  much  your  patronage 
has  brought  me."  ^  Then,  taking  up  once  more  these  images 
which  he  loved  to  borrow  from  maritime  life,  he  said  to  his 
intimate  friend  Leander,  Bishop  of  Toledo,  whom  he  had 
met  at  Constantinople :  "  I  am  here  so  beaten  by  the  waves 
of  this  world,  that  I  despair  of  being  able  to  guide  to  port 
this  rotten  old  vessel  with  which  God  has  charged  me.  .  .  . 
I  must  hold  the  helm  amid  a  thousand  difficulties.  ...  I 
already  hear  the  bell  of  shipwreck  ringing.  ...  I  weep 
when  I  recall  the  peaceful  shore  which  I  have  left,  and  sigh 
in  perceiving  afar  that  which  I  cannot  attain."  ^ 

One  day,  long  after,  when,  more  than  ever  overwhelmed 
by  the  burden  of  secular  affairs,  he  had  withdrawn  into  a 
secret  place,  to  give  himself  up  to  silence  and  sadness,  he 
was  joined  there  by  the  deacon  Peter,  his  pupil,  the  friend  of 

1  Epist.,  i.  6.  2  "Si  me  diligitis,  plangite."— /6id,  i.  30. 

'  "  Quorum  synthicse  spathse  sunt,  et  gratia  poena.  Ecce  ubi  patrocinia 
vestra  me  perduxerunt." — Ibid.,  i.  31. 

^  "  Vetustam  ac  putrescentem  navim.  .  .  .  Flens  reminiscor  quod  per- 
didi  meae  placidum  littus  quietis." — Ibid.,  i.  43. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  2  1 

his  youth  and  companion  of  his  beloved  studies.  "  Has 
some  new  trouble  happened  to  you,"  said  the  young  man, 
"  that  you  are  thus  sadder  than  usual  ?  "  "  My  grief,"  an- 
swered the  pontiff,  "  is  that  of  all  my  days,  always  old  by 
custom,  and  always  new  by  its  daily  increase.^  My  poor 
soul  recalls  what  it  was  of  old  in  our  monastery,  when  it 
soared  over  everything  changeable  and  transitory  ;  when  it 
dreamt  only  of  heaven  ;  when  by  contemplation  it  escaped 
from  the  cloister  of  this  body  which  enclosed  it ;  when  it 
loved  death  as  the  entrance  of  life.  And  now,  because  of 
my  pastoral  charge,  it  must  bear  the  burdens  of  the  men  of 
the  world,  and  soil  itself  in  this  dust.  And  when,  after 
having  exhausted  itself  without,  it  comes  back  to  its  internal 
retreat,  it  returns  with  diminished  forces.  I  meditate  on  all 
I  have  suffered  and  lost.  I  see  myself  tossed  by  the  ocean 
and  broken  by  the  tempest.  When  I  think  of  my  former 
life,  I  seem  to  look  back  towards  the  shore.  And  what 
is  still  more  sad,  when  thus  shaken  by  the  storm,  I  can 
scarcely  perceive  the  port  which  I  have  left."  ^ 

These  exclamations  of  profound  grief  tell  us  all  that  we  re- 
quire to  know  of  the  influence  of  this  cloistral  life,  which  swayed 
to  such  an  extent  the  holy  soul  of  the  greatest  man  of  his  age. 

It  is  true  that  the  condition  of  the  world  and  the  Church, 
at  the  advent  of  Gregory,  exhibited  only  causes  of  grief  and 

1  "  Quadam  die  .  .  .  secretum  locum  petii  amicum  moeroris  .  .  .  dilec- 
tissimus  filius  meus  Petrus  .  .  .  mihi  a  primasvo  juventutis  flore  amicitiis 
familiariter  obstrictus.  .  .  .  Num  quidquam  novi.  .  .  .  Mceror,  Petre, 
queiii  quotidie  patior,  et  semper  mihi  per  usum  vetus  est,  et  semper  per 
augmentum  novus." — Prcefat.  ad  Dialog. 

-  "  Infelix  animus  meus  occupationis  suse  pulsatus  vulnere  meminit 
qualis  aliquando  in  monasterio  fuit,  quomodo  ei  labentia  cuncta  subter 
erant.  .  .  .  Quod  etiam  retentus  corpore  ipsa  jam  carnis  claustra  con- 
templationem  transibat,  quod  mortem  quoque,  quEe  pene  cunctis  poena 
est,  videlicet  ut  ingressum  vitaa  et  laboris  prsemium  amabat.  At  nunc 
.  .  .  et  post  tam  pulchram  quietis  sufe  speciem  terreni  actus  pulvere 
foedatur.  .  .  .  Ecce  etenim  nunc  magni  maris  fluctibus  quatior,  atque  in 
navi  multis  tempestatis  validae  procellis  inlidor  :  et  cum  prioris  vitas 
recolo,  quasi  post  tergum  reductis  oculis  viso  littore  suspiro  .  .  .  vix 
jam  portem  valeo  videre  quem  reliqui."— Procem.  ad  Dialog. 


2  2  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

alarm.  An  obstinate,  although  restrained  schism,  which 
dated  from  the  fifth  general  council,^  and  which  had  lasted 
forty  years,  consumed  the  powers  of  the  clergy.  The 
papacy,  always  dependent  on  the  Byzantine  emperors,  and 
unceasingly  humiliated  by  them,  did  not  even  find,  in  the 
arm  of  these  distrustful  and  incapable  masters,  the  support 
which  it  needed  against  its  enemies  from  within  and  with- 
out. Within  the  shadow  of  their  throne  flourished  those 
patriarchs  of  Constantinople,  whose  ambition  already  aspired 
to  the  title  of  universal,  and  who  were  to  end  by  rending 
the  Church  in  twain.  Africa  was  a  prey  to  the  Donatists  ; 
Spain  was  entirely  Arian  ;  England  had  fallen  back  into 
idolatry  ;  in  Gaul,  despite  the  Catholic  faith  professed  by 
the  successors  of  Clovis,  simony  polluted  the  Church,  and  the 
struggles  of  Fredegond  and  Brunehaut  distressed  all  Chris- 
tians ;  in  the  East,  the  Avars  and  Persians  threatened  or 
ravaged  the  empire.  But  nothing  was  more  lamentable 
than  the  state  of  Italy.  As  if  the  scourge  of  God,  floods, 
plague,  and  famine,  were  not  enough,  men  rent  each  other 
with  contentions,  and  disorders  of  all  kind  invaded  the 
Church,  following  in  the  steps  of  persecution  and  war. 
The  Lombards,  who  from  being  pagans  had  become  Arians, 
believed  that  by  persecuting  furiously  the  Roman  Church 
they  would  secure  their  power  against  the  Greeks  ;  they 
regarded  the  papacy  as  the  servant  of  the  Byzantine  court, 
and  consequently  as  their  own  habitual  enemy.  The  Greek 
emperors,  on  their  side,  accused  the  popes  of  treason,  be- 
cause they  did  not  sacrifice  everything  to  the  necessities  of 
imperial  policy,  or  of  usurpation,  because  they  took  upon 
themselves  the  task  of  providing  for  the  public  necessities 
when  the  inaction  or  powerlessness  of  the  lieutenants  of 
Csesar  became  too  evident.  In  reality,  the  successors  of 
Constantine,  with  an  instinctive  perception  of  the  future, 
perceived  already,  in  the  successors  of  St.  Peter,  the 
power  which  God  had  destined  to  replace  their  decrepid 
1  The  second  of  Constantinople,  in  553. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE  GREAT  23 

sovereignty,  in  Italy  and  over  that  city  in  which  the 
imagination  of  Christendom  still  placed  the  centre  of 
the  empire  and  the  cause  of  its  existence.  Thence  came 
their  tortuous,  oppressive,  and  inconsistent  policy.  They 
would  be  obeyed  as  masters,  by  nations  whom  they  knew 
not  how  to  defend ;  and  as,  amid  the  ruins  which  despot- 
ism had  everywhere  accumulated,  the  papacy  alone  was  seen 
standing,  they  willingly  made  the  popes  responsible  for  the 
consequences  of  their  own  weakness. 

The  poor  monk  who  showed  so  much  despair  when  he 
was  thrown  into  that  whirlpool  by  the  unanimous  voice  of 
the  Romans,  could  yet  perceive  with  a  bold  and  clear  glance 
the  dangers  of  the  situation,  and  adopt  a  line  of  conduct 
which  was  a  manifest  realisation  of  the  infallible  promises  of 
Jesus  Christ.  He  founded  the  temporal  greatness  of  the  Holy 
See,  and  the  progress  of  its  spiritual  authority,  upon  the  basis, 
long  immovable,  of  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  nations. 

First  of  all,  and  especially,  he  concerned  himself  with  the 
Lombards.  Although  he  has  perhaps  judged  too  severely 
in  his  writings  this  proud  and  intelligent  race,  whose  courage 
and  legislative  powers  have  attracted  the  attention  of  pos- 
terity, and  who  were  a  hundred  times  more  worthy  than 
the  degenerate  Greco-Romans,  whose  authority  he  loyally 
endeavoured  to  re-establish  in  Italy,  Gregory  used  in  his 
intercourse  with  them  no  means  that  were  not  legitimate 
and  honourable.  He  had  a  right,  after  long  and  laborious 
negotiations  with  them,  to  bear  this  testimony  to  himself, 
"  Had  I  been  willing  to  lend  myself  to  the  destruction  of 
the  Lombards,  that  nation  would  have  had  to-day  neither 
kings,  dukes,  nor  counts,  and  would  have  been  a  prey  to 
irremediable  confusion  ;  but  because  I  fear  God  I  would 
not  assist  in  the  ruin  of  any."  ^  He  doubtless  alluded  to 
the  treacheries  planned  by  the  exarchs  of  Ravenna,  who 
were  the  emperor's  viceroys  in  Italy,  by  which  they  at- 
tempted to  make  up  for  their  military  inferiority  before  the 
^  Epist.,  iv.  47,  5. — He  wrote  this  in  598. 


24  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

Lombards.  The  Roman  exarch  was,  by  his  animosity  and 
cowardice,  one  of  the  principal  afflictions  of  Gregory's  life. 
After  having  broken  the  peace  with  the  Lombards,  and  thus 
justified  the  renewed  hostilities  of  their  dukes  Ariulf  ^  and 
Arigis  ^  in  Central  and  Southern  Italy,  he  abandoned  Rome 
and  Naples  without  defence,  and  notwithstanding  interdicted 
the  pope  from  treating  with  the  invaders.  It  was  then  that 
Gregory  displayed  all  the  resolution  of  a  valiant  captain, 
with  all  the  authority  of  a  sovereign.  He  did  not  content 
himself  with  complaining  bitterly  to  the  Emperor  Maurice 
of  the  desertion  of  Italy,  and  that,  in  order  to  guard  Perugia, 
Rome  had  been  left  defenceless.  "  I  was  obliged,"  he  wrote 
to  him,  "  to  see  with  my  own  eyes  the  Romans  led  into 
France  with  ropes  round  their  necks,  like  dogs,  to  be  sold 
in  the  market."  ^  But  he  himself  provided  what  was  most 
urgent,  wrote  to  the  military  leaders  to  encourage  them  in 
resistance,  pointed  out  to  the  soldiers  assembled  at  Naples 
the  leader  whom  they  should  follow,  fed  the  people,  paid  the 
troops  their  wages  and  the  Barbarians  their  contributions  of 
war,  all  at  the  expense  of  the  ecclesiastical  treasury.  "  The 
emperor,"  he  wrote  to  the  empress,  "  has  a  treasurer  for  his 
troops  at  Ravenna,  but  as  for  me,  I  am  the  treasurer  of  the 
Lombards  at  Rome."  * 

At  a  later  period,  the  king  of  the  Lombards,  Agilulf,  dis- 
gusted by  the  renewed  treachery  of  the  imperial  exarch, 
laid  siege  to  Rome  itself.  Gregory,  who  was,  above  every- 
thing else,  a  bishop,  and  watched  over  the  spiritual  interests 
of  the  Romans  with  still  more  care  than  he  exerted  for  their 
material  defence,  was  then  expounding  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
in  his  sermons.  He  interrupted  his  discourses  more  than 
once  to  breathe  out  his  grief,  and  to  deplore  the  misfortunes 
of  the  eternal  city.      "  Two  things  specially  trouble  me,"  he 

1  Duke  of  Spoleto.  2  jy-^^Q  of  Benevento. 

3  "  Quod  oculis  meis  cernerem  Romanos  more  canum  in  collis  funibus 
ligatos,  .  .  .  Qui  ad  Franciam  ducebantur  venales." — Epist.,  v.  40. 
*  Ibid.,  V.  21. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  25 

said,  when  lie  was  asked  at  least  to  explain  the  last  chapters 
of  the  prophet  upon  the  re-establishment  of  the  temple : 
"  the  obscurity  of  the  text,  and  the  news  that  King  Agi- 
lulf  has  passed  the  Po  on  his  way  to  besiege  us.  Judge, 
my  brethren,  how  a  poor  soul,  thus  troubled  and  distracted, 
can  penetrate  into  such  mysteries."  ^  And  again,  "  What 
does  the  world  contain  which  can  please  us  ?  .  .  .  We  see 
nothing  but  sadness,  we  hear  only  groans.  .  .  .  Rome,  once 
mistress  of  the  world,  how  do  we  see  her  fallen  !  Where  is 
the  senate  ?  where  is  the  people  ?  But  why  speak  I  of 
men  ?  The  very  buildings  are  destroyed  and  the  walls 
crumble  down.  .  .  .  Once  her  princes  and  chiefs  spread 
themselves  over  all  the  earth  to  possess  it.  The  sons  of 
worldly  men  hastened  hither  to  advance  themselves  in  the 
world.  Now  that  she  is  deserted  and  ruined,  no  man  comes 
here  to  seek  his  fortune:  there  is  no  power  remaining  to 
oppress  the  poor."  After  a  time  he  announced  that  he 
should  stop  his  preaching :  "  Let  no  one  blame  me  if  I  put 
an  end  to  this  discourse.  You  all  perceive  how  our  tribu- 
lations increase.  The  sword  and  death  are  everywhere. 
Some  return  to  us  with  their  hands  cut  off,  with  the  news 
that  others  are  taken  or  killed.  I  must  be  silent,  because 
my  soul  is  weary  of  life."  ^ 

Agilulf,  however,  for  some  unknown  reason,  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  taking  Rome.  All  the  surrounding  country  was 
once  more  devastated,  and  the  incurable  desolation  and  un- 
wholesome barrenness  of  the  Roman  Carapagna  dates  from 
this  period  ;  but  the  city  was  spared.  Gregory  could  verify 
the  prophecy  of  St.  Benedict,  who  had  predicted  that  Rome, 
condemned  to  the  most  cruel  trials,  should  sink  back  upon 
herself,  but  should  not  be  destroyed.  ^      He  could  still  con- 

^  Homil.  18. 

■  "  Undique  gladiis,  .  .  .  undique  mortis  periculum.  .  .  .  Alii  detrun- 
catis  manibus.  .  .  .  Tsedet  animam  meam  vite  mefe." — Homil.  vlt.  in 
EzecMel. 

^  "  Roma  a  gentilibus  non  exterminabitur,  sed  ...  in  semetipsa  mar- 
cescet."— i)iaL,  ii.  15. 


26  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

tinue  to  watch  over  these  crumbling  walls,  these  overthrown 
palaces,  these  buildings  worn  out  with  extreme  old  age.^ 
But,  as  a  reward  for  his  generous  and  useful  efforts,  he 
received  only  new  denunciations  from  the  exarch,  and  a 
reprimand  from  the  emperor,  who  reproached  him  in  insult- 
ing terms  with  his  simplicity,  "  I  understand,"  the  pope 
replied  to  him,  "what  the  language  of  your  serene  missives 
means :  you  find  that  I  have  acted  like  a  fool,  and  you  are 
right.  If  I  had  not  acted  like  a  fool  I  should  not  have 
borne  all  that  I  have  borne  for  you  among  the  swords  of  the 
Lombards."  ^  He  succeeded  at  last,  after  nine  years'  exer- 
tions, in  overcoming  the  Byzantine  repugnance  to  acknow- 
ledge any  right  whatever  on  the  side  of  the  Lombards,  and 
concluded  a  peace  between  the  two  powers  which  made 
Italy,  exhausted  by  thirty  years  of  war  and  brigandage, 
thrill  with  joy.  It  was  of  short  duration  ;  but  when  hos- 
tilities recommenced,  he  entered  into  direct  negotiation  with 
King  Agilulf,  and  obtained  from  that  prince  a  special  truce 
for  Rome  and  its  surrounding  territory.  He  had  besides 
found  a  powerful  advocate  with  the  Lombard  king  in  the 
person  of  the  illustrious  Queen  Theodelinda,  who  was  the 
Clotilde  of  these  last  conquerors  of  Italy.  This  princess,  a 
Bavarian  and  Catholic  by  birth,  the  widow  of  King  Autharis 
by  her  first  marriage,  had  so  gained  the  heart  of  the  Lom- 
bards, that  they  conferred  upon  her  the  right  of  designating 
his  successor  by  marrying  whomsoever  she  thought  most 
worthy  of  reigning  with  her.  In  this  way  she  had  given 
her  hand  and  crown  to  Duke  Agilulf,  in  the  same  year  as 
that  in  which  Gregory  ascended  the  Holy  See.  These  two 
noble  hearts  soon  understood  each  other.  The  queen  was 
always  the  faithful  friend  of  the  pope ;    she  served  as   a 

1  "  Dissoluta  moenia,  eversas  domos,  .  .  .  pcdificia  longo  senio  lassata." 
— Dial.,  ii.  15. 

2  "  In  serenissimis  jussionibus  dominorum  pietas  .  .  .  urbanse  simplici- 
tatis  vocabulo  me  fatuum  appellat.  .  .  .  Simplex  denuncior  :  constat  procul 
dubio  quia  fatuus  appellor  .  .  .  quod  ita  esse  ego  quoque  conflteor." — 
Epist.,  V.  40. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  27 

medium  of  communication  between  him  and  her  husband. 
It  is  not  certain  whether  she  succeeded  in  converting  the 
latter,^  but  her  gentle  influence  led  the  entire  Lombard 
nation,  little  by  little,  from  Arianism  to  the  Catholic  faith. 
Gregory,  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  pontificate,  had  ex- 
horted the  Italian  bishops  to  make  special  exertions  for  the 
conversion  of  these  formidable  enemies  of  orthodoxy.  It  is 
believed  that  the  queen  was  powerfully  aided  in  this  work 
by  the  Dialogues  which  Gregory  had  compiled  from  the 
narratives  of  the  first  disciples  and  successors  of  St.  Bene- 
dict, and  in  which  he  related  the  life  of  that  patriarch  of  the 
monastic  order,  and  the  marvels  of  fervour  and  penitence 
exhibited  by  the  monks  who  were  imbued  with  his  spirit. 
This  work  was  dedicated  to  the  Lombard  queen,  as  if  to 
enable  her  to  show  to  the  devastators  of  Italy  proofs  of  the 
sanctity  and  moral  greatness  with  which  the  orthodox  faith 
alone  could  endow  the  vanquished. 

It  was  thus  that  Gregory  snatched  Eome  from  the  yoke 
of  conquest.  He  not  only  preserved  her  from  the  Lom- 
bards, but  sheltered  her  from  the  violence  of  all  the  petty 
tyrants  of  the  neighbourhood,  who  rose  amidst  the  universal 
confusion.  Bat  his  soul  was  consumed,  says  one  of  his  his- 
torians, by  the  fire  of  perpetual  alarms  concerning  the  fate 
of  his  children,  and  that  consecrated  soil  which  he  regarded 
as  their  inheritance.^  We  can  understand  now  how  the 
patriotism  of  popes,  such  as  Gregory,  created  their  temporal 
power,  and  how,  "  sole  guardians  of  Rome,  they  remained  its 
masters."  "* 

However,  he  required  still  more  constancy  and  courage  to 
contend  with  the  Greeks,  with  that  Eastern  Empire  which 
was  represented  by  functionaries  whose  odious  exactions  had 

1  St.  Columba,  in  a  letter  written  in  607,  speaks  of  him  as  still  an 
Arian. 

^  Epist.,  i.  29. 

2  "  Urebant  incessanter  ejus  animum  filiorum  hinc  inde  discrimina  nun- 
tiata."— Paul.  Diac,  c.  13. 

*  OZANAM,  Unpublished  Fragment  on  St.  Gregory. 


2  8  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

quite  as  great  a  share  in  the  despair  of  the  people  as  the 
ravages  of  the  Barbarians,  and  whose  malice  was  more 
dreadful,  as  he  wrote,  than  the  sword  of  the  Lombards : 
"  They  can  only  kill  our  bodies,  while  the  imperial  judges 
devour  our  souls  by  their  rapine  and  fraud."  ^  Elsewhere 
he  denounces  to  the  empress  the  officers  who,  in  Sardinia, 
sold  to  the  pagans  for  money  the  permission  to  sacrifice  to 
their  idols,  and  continued  to  collect  that  impost  from  those 
who  had  been  baptized,  and  who,  in  Corsica,  overwhelmed 
the  inhabitants  with  such  burdens  that  they  were  reduced 
to  selling  their  children  and  fleeing  to  seek  refuge  among 
the  Lombards.^  It  was  the  same  in  Sicily,  and  the  re- 
venues provided  by  their  extortions  were  to  be  employed  in 
the  defence  of  Italy.  But,  said  Gregory  to  the  empress, 
"  it  might  be  suggested  to  the  emperor  that  it  would  be 
better  to  give  up  some  expenses  in  Italy,  in  order  to  dry 
the  tears  of  the  oppressed  in  Sicily.^  I  say  this  briefly,  and 
only  that  the  supreme  Judge  may  not  impute  my  silence  to 
me  as  a  crime." 

The  entire  life  of  Gregory  was  then  a  struggle  with  the 
Byzantine  spirit,  with  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  who 
aimed  at  supplanting  the  Roman  pontiff",  as  well  as  with  the 
emperor,  who  would  have  dominated  Italy  without  defending 
her,  and  ruled  the  Church  as  if  she  had  been  only  a  province 
of  his  empire.  God  had  sent  him,  before  his  pontificate,  to 
Constantinople,  that  he  might  the  better  understand  that 
field  of  battle  *  in  which  he  won  for  the  Church  more  than 
one  difficult  victory. 

Among  so  many  conflicts — through  which  Gregory  always 
maintained  the  rights  and  dignities  of  the  Holy  See,  con- 

1  "  Ejus  in  nos  malitia  gladios  Longobardorum  vicifc,  ita  ut  benigniores 
videantur  hostes,  quia  nos  interimunt,  quam  Reipublicae  judices,  qui  nos 
.  .  .  rapinis  atque  fallaciis  in  cogitatione  consumunt," — Epist.,  v.  42. 

2  Ibid.,  V.  41. 

3  "  Sed  ego  suggero  ad  hoc,  ut,  etsi  minus  expensge  in  Italia  tribuantur, 
a  suo  tamen  imperio  oppressorum  lacrymas  compescat." — Ibid.,  v.  41. 

^  DoM  PiTRA.,  Hist,  de  S.  Leger,  Introduction. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  29 

ciliating,  at  the  same  time,  with  extraordinary  precautions, 
the  arrogance  of  the  Byzantine  court — we  shall  dwell  only 
on  that  one  which  arose  between  him  and  the  patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  John,  surnamed  the  Faster.  Relying  on 
the  support  of  most  of  the  Eastern  bishops,  faithful  to  the 
proud  pretensions  which  for  two  centuries  past  had  been 
entertained  by  the  bishops  of  the  imperial  residence,  and 
preluding  thus  the  disastrous  ambition  of  his  successors,  this 
monk,  who  had  begun  by  a  pretence  of  refusing  the  episco- 
pate, took  in  his  acts  the  title  of  oecumenical  or  universal 
patriarch.  Gregory  stood  up  with  as  much  vigour  as  autho- 
rity against  this  strange  pretension.  He  did  not  draw  back 
before  the  emperor,  who  openly  sided  with  the  bishop  of 
his  new  capital,  and  although  deserted  in  the  struggle  by 
the  two  other  patriarchs  of  Antioch  and  Alexandria,  who 
would  have  been  equally  wounded  by  the  usurpation  of  him 
of  Constantinople,  Gregory  persevered,  during  all  his  pontifi- 
cate,^ in  his  resistance  to  that  wretched  assumption,  in  which 
he  perceived  less  an  attempt  upon  the  unity  and  authority 
of  the  universal  Church,  than  an  excess  of  pride  on  one 
side  and  adulation  on  the  other,  which  disgusted  his  humble 
and  generous  soul.^ 

"  What !  "  he  wrote  to  the  emperor,  "  St.  Peter,  who  re- 
ceived the  keys  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  power  of  binding 
and  loosing,  the  charge  and  primacy  of  the  whole  Church, 
was  never  called  universal  apostle  ;  and  yet  my  pious  brother 

1  The  contest  was  renewed  under  Phocas.  Neither  the  emperor  nor  the 
patriarch  would  yield.  If  Gregory  did  not  obtain  the  victory,  he  at  least 
paved  the  way  for  that  of  his  successor  Boniface  III.,  under  whom  the 
emperor  Phocas  forbade  the  patriarch  the  use  of  the  contested  title ;  but 
during  the  following  reign,  under  Heraclius,  it  was  resumed  by  the  patri- 
arch Sergius.  In  return,  the  popes  then  resumed  the  right  to  confirm  the 
patriarchs  of  Constantinople  —  a  right  from  which  the  latter  had  been 
emancipated  for  a  century,  and  which  Photius  did  not  succeed  in  over- 
throwing until  three  centuries  later.— Baeonius,  AnnaL,  ad  606.  Lau., 
p.  165. 

2  "  Quousque  pestem  universalis  nominis  ab  ipsis  etiam  subdolis  adula- 
torum  labiis  penitus  abstulisset." — Joan.  Diac,  Vit.,  iiL  c.  59. 


30  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

John  would  name  himself  universal  bishop.  I  must  needs 
exclaim,  0  tempora  !  0  mores  !  All  Europe  is  in  the  power 
of  the  Barbarians.  The  cities  are  overthrown,  the  castles 
are  in  ruins,  the  provinces  are  depopulated,  the  soil  has  no 
longer  hands  to  cultivate  it ;  idolaters  pursue  the  faithful 
even  to  death.  And  priests  who  should  prostrate  them- 
selves in  the  courts  of  the  temple  in  dust  and  ashes,  seek 
after  titles  of  vanity !  "  He  took  care  to  explain  to  the 
emperor  that  he  did  not  defend  his  own  cause,  but  that  of  the 
whole  Church,  which  was  scandalised  by  such  an  unheard-of 
pretension.  He  reminded  him  that  Nestorius  and  Macedo- 
nius,  both  bishops  of  Constantinople,  had  both  been  heretics 
and  heresiarchs.  He  added :  "  For  me,  I  am  the  ser- 
vant of  all  the  priests  as  long  as  they  live  in  a  manner 
becoming  the  priesthood :  but  if  any  one  raises  his  head 
against  God  and  against  the  laws  of  our  fathers,  I  am  con- 
fident that  he  shall  not  make  me  bow  mine,  even  with  the 
sword."  ^ 

Gregory  was  so  much  the  more  bold  in  combating  the 
dangerous  vanity  of  the  Byzantine  patriarch,  that  he  him- 
self had  displayed  on  all  occasions  a  sincere  and  practical 
humility.  His  vast  correspondence  and  all  the  acts  of  his 
life  furnish  a  thousand  touching  proofs  of  it.  He  had  im- 
pressed the  seal  of  this  humility  upon  the  papacy  itself,  by 
adopting,  first  of  all  the  popes,  in  the  preamble  of  his  ojfficial 
documents,  the  fine  title  of  Servant  of  the  servants  of  God, 
which  has  become  the  distinctive  title  of  his  successors.  He 
had  expressly  refused  the  same  name  of  universal  hisJwp  or 
po2)e,  which  had  been  given  him  by  the  patriarch  of  Alex- 
andria.     His  magnanimous  humility  displays  itself  fully  in 

1  "  Et  vir  sanctissimus  coDsacerdos  meus  Joannes.  .  .  .  Exclamare  com- 
pellor  ac  dicere :  O  tempora  !  O  mores  !  Ecce  cuncta  in  Europas  partibus. 
.  .  .  Et  tamen  sacerdotes  qui  in  pavimento  et  cinere  flentes  jacere  debue- 
runt.  .  .  .  Numquid  ego  hac  in  re  .  .  .  propriam  causam  defendo.  .  .  . 
Ego  cunctorum  sacerdotum  servus  sum.  .  .  .  Nam  qui  contra  Dominum 
.  .  .  suam  cervicem  erigit,  .  .  .  confido  quia  meam  sibi  nee  cum  gladiis 
flectet." — Epist,  v.  20. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  31 

these  noble  words  of  his  letter  to  this  patriarch.  "  I  desire 
to  increase  in  virtue  and  not  in  words.  I  do  not  consider 
myself  honoured  in  that  which  dishonours  my  brethren.  It 
is  the  honour  of  the  universal  Church  which  honours  me. 
It  is  the  strength  and  greatness  of  my  brethren  in  the  epis- 
copate which  does  me  honour.  I  feel  myself  truly  honoured 
only  when  I  see  that  no  man  refuses  to  another  the  honour 
due  to  him.  Away  with  those  words  which  inflate  vanity 
and  wound  charity !  .  .  .  The  holy  Council  of  Chalcedon 
and  other  Fathers  have  offered  this  title  to  my  predecessors, 
but  none  of  them  has  ever  used  it,  that  they  might  guard 
their  own  honour  in  the  sight  of  God,  by  seeking  here  below 
the  honour  of  all  the  priesthood."^ 

This  weighty  difference,  another  of  which  we  shall  speak 
regarding  the  prohibition  addressed  to  soldiers  to  their  be- 
coming monks,  and  especially  that  which  arose  between  the 
pope  and  the  emperor  touching  the  irregular  election  of  the 
metropolitan  of  Salona,  contributed  to  render  almost  perma- 
nent the  misunderstanding  between  them.  That  Eastern 
world  which  was  so  soon  to  become  the  prey  of  Islam,  was 
obstinate  in  ignoring  its  best  chance  of  salvation,  in  alienat- 
ing the  nations  and  Churches  of  the  West,  and  in  weakening 
by  a  minute  and  vexatious  despotism  the  Christian  life  which 
had  blossomed  with  so  much  promise  in  its  bosom.  Gregory 
had  to  exercise  an  incessant  vigilance,  to  prevent  the  immense 
army  of  lay  officials,  from  the  emperor  down  to  the  meanest 
agent  of  the  treasury,  from  encroaching  upon  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  Church,  and  especially  from  relaxing  or 
attempting  to  break  the  ties  of  subordination  which  con- 
nected individual  churches  with  the  Holy  See.  And  he 
had  also  to  reconcile  this  permanent  and  universal  resistance 

1  "Ego  non  verbis  quaero  prosperari,  sed  moribus  ;  nee  honorem  meum 
esse  depute  in  quo  fratres  meos  honorem  suum  perdere  cognosco.  3feus 
namque  honor  est  honor  universalis  Ecclesice.  Meus  honor  est  fratrum  meorum 
solidus  vigor.  Turn  ergo  vere  honoratus  sum,  cum  singulis  quibusque  honor 
debitus  non  negatur.  .  .  .  Recedant  verba  quje  vanitatem  inflant,  caritatem 
vulnerant." — EpisL,  viii.  c.  30. 


32  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

with  the  submission  which  he  professed  and  practised,  to 
the  best  of  his  power,  towards  the  empire  in  temporal  affairs. 
In  claiming  for  the  Church  an  almost  absolute  liberty  and 
sovereignty  in  spiritual  matters,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  declare 
himself  the  humble  subject  of  Caesar.  From  thence  came 
that  singular  medley  of  immovable  resolution  and  humble 
protestations  which  appears  in  his  correspondence  with  the 
Csesars.  However,  though  he  always  spoke  and  often  acted 
as  a  docile  subject  of  the  successors  of  Augustus  and  Con- 
stantine,  they  were  not  slow  to  understand  that  they  had 
something  else  to  deal  with  in  this  bishop,  who  was  at  once 
the  direct  successor  of  Peter,  the  patriarch  of  the  entire  West, 
and  the  greatest  proprietor  in  Italy,  and  who  had  already 
occupied  the  place  of  mediator  between  the  Barbarians  and 
the  Empire. 

We  find  this  mixture  of  extreme  humility  and  energetic 
resistance  in  another  struggle,  which  the  constant  and 
natural  concern  of  Gregory  for  the  rights  and  interests  of 
monastic  life  had  led  him  into,  in  the  beginning  of  his 
pontificate.  The  Emperor  Maurice  had  published  an  edict 
which  interdicted  public  functionaries  and  soldiers  from 
entering  either  into  the  ranks  of  the  clergy  or  into  a  monas- 
tery. Gregory  approved  the  first  clause  of  this  law,  which 
interdicted  public  functionaries  from  holding  ecclesiastical 
offices  :  "  for,"  said  he,  "  these  people  prefer  rather  to  change 
their  occupation,  than  to  leave  the  world."  ^  But,  always 
a  monk  in  his  heart,  he  protested  against  the  measure  rela- 
tive to  monastic  life,  in  a  letter  celebrated  for  its  eloquence 
and  ability,  and  which  must  not  be  omitted  here.  He 
begins  by  declaring  that  he  speaks  not  as  pope,  but  as  an 
individual,  the  obliged  friend  of  the  emperor,  which  explains 
the  humble  character  of  certain  passages ;  but  he  soon  rises 
to  all  the  loftiness  of  spiritual  power  and  the  freedom  of 
souls. 

"  The  man  who  fails  to  be  sincere  in  what  he  says  or 
1  "Mutare  sseculum,  non  relinquere." — Epist.,  iii.  65. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  33 

does  to  the  serene  emperors  ^  is  responsible  towards  God. 
For  myself,  the  unworthy  servant  of  your  piety,  I  speak 
neither  as  bishop  nor  as  subject,  but  by  the  right  which 
I  find  in  my  heart.^  For,  serene  lord,  you  were  my  master 
before  you  became  master  of  all.  ...  I  confess  to  my  masters 
that  this  law  has  filled  me  with  terror,  for  it  closes  the  way 
of  heaven  to  many.  .  .  .  There  are  many  who  can  lead  a 
Christian  life  in  the  world.  But  there  are  also  many  who 
cannot  be  saved,  but  by  forsaking  all  things.    .    .    . 

"  And  who  am  I  but  dust,  and  a  worm  of  the  earth,  who 
venture  to  speak  thus  to  my  masters  ?  ^  However,  when  I 
see  this  law  interfere  with  God,  the  Master  of  the  world,  I 
cannot  keep  silence.  For  this  power  over  the  human  race 
has  been  bestowed  from  on  high  upon  my  masters,  that  they 
might  help  those  who  would  do  well  to  open  up  the  way  to 
heaven,  and  make  the  earthly  kingdom  serve  the  heavenly. 
Yet  here  it  is  forbidden  to  him  who  has  once  been  enrolled 
in  the  terrestrial  army  to  enter,  unless  when  an  invalid  or 
in  retirement,  into  the  service  of  our  Lord.  ...  It  is  thus 
that  Christ  answers  by  me,  the  last  of  His  servants  and  yours  : 
'  I  have  made  thee,  from  a  secretary,  count  of  the  guards ; 
from  count,  Csesar ;  from  Caesar,  emperor ;  if  that  was  not 
enough,  I  have  made  thee  also  father  of  an  emperor.  I  have 
put  My  priests  under  thy  power,  and  thou  withdrawest  thy 
soldiers  from  My  service  ! '  *  Sire,  say  to  your  servant  what 
you  can  answer  to  Him  who,  at  the  day  of  judgment,  shall 
speak  to  you  thus.^ 

"  Perhaps  it  is  supposed  that  none  of  these  men  are  truly 

^  He  speaks  in  the  plural,  because  Maurice  had  associated  his  son  Theo- 
dosius  in  the  imperial  power  in  591. 

'  "Neque  ut  episcopus,  neque  ut  servus  jure  reipublicse,  sed  jure  private 
loquor." 

3  "Ego  autem  hzec  dominis  meis  loquens,  quid  sum,  nisi  pulvis  et 
vermis  ? " 

^  "  Ego  te  de  notario  comitem  excubitorum.  .  .  .  Sacerdotes  meos  tuse 
manui  commisi." 

5  "  Responde,  rogo,  piissime  domine,  servo  tuo,  quid  venienti  e  hsec 
dicenti  responsurus  es  ?  " 

VOL.  II.  C 


34  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

converted  ;  but  I,  your  unworthy  servant,  have  known  many 
soldiers  converted  in  nay  lifetime,  who  have,  in  the  monas- 
teries, given  an  example  of  every  virtue,  and  even  worked 
miracles.  Yet  this  law  interdicts  every  similar  conversion. 
Inquire,  I  beseech  you,  what  emperor  it  was  who  made  a 
similar  law,  and  see  whether  it  becomes  you  to  imitate  him.-^ 
And  consider  besides  that  men  would  be  prevented  from 
leaving  the  world  at  a  time  when  the  end  of  the  world 
approaches.  For  the  time  is  not  distant  when,  amidst  the 
burning  of  heaven  and  earth,  in  the  universal  conflagra- 
tion of  the  elements,  surrounded  by  angels  and  archangels, 
thrones,  dominions,  and  powers,  the  terrible  Judge  shall 
appear.  When  He  would  pardon  all  your  sins,  if  He  did 
not  find  this  single  law  directed  against  Himself,  what,  I 
pray  you,  will  be  your  excuse  ?  I  conjure  you  by  that 
terrible  Judge,  not  to  make  your  tears,  your  fasts,  your 
many  prayers,  useless  before  God,  but  to  soften  or  abrogate 
this  law,  for  the  army  of  my  masters  shall  increase  so  much 
the  more  against  the  army  of  the  enemy,  as  the  army  of 
God  shall  increase  in  prayer. 

"In  submission,  however,  to  your  command,  I  have  for- 
warded this  same  law  into  the  different  provinces,  and  be- 
cause it  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God  Almighty, 
I  warn  you  of  it  by  this  supplication.  I  have  thus  fulfilled 
my  duty  on  both  sides — have  rendered  obedience  to  the 
emperor,  and  have  not  been  silent  concerning  that  which 
seemed  to  me  in  opposition  to  God."  ^ 

Modest  and  humble  as  this  letter  was,  he  did  not  venture 
to  send  it  to  the  emperor  by  his  resident  representative,  but 
confided  it  to  one  of  Maurice's  physicians,  who  was  a  private 
friend  of  his  own,  that  it  might  be  presented  privately,  and 
at  a  favourable  moment.  The  immediate  effect  of  this  pro- 
test is  not  known,  but  it  was  listened  to,  for  a  subsequent 
letter  of  the  pope  to  the  metropolitans  of  Italy  and  Illyria 

1  He  says  in  a  subsequent  letter  that  this  was  Julian  the  Apostate. 

2  Epist. ,  iii.  65. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  35 

enjoins  them  not  to  receive  soldiers  into  monasteries  till 
after  a  three  years'  novitiate,  and  adds,  that  the  emperor 
consented  to  these  conditions.^ 

These  perpetual  contests  with  the  Byzantine  court  may 
explain,  without  excusing,  the  conduct  of  Gregory  at  the 
death  of  the  Emperor  Maurice.  This  prince,  infected,  like 
all  his  predecessors,  with  a  mania  for  interfering  in  ecclesi- 
astical affairs,  and  interfering  with  all  the  weight  of  absolute 
power,  was  very  superior  to  most  of  them.  Gregory  him- 
self has  more  than  once  done  justice  to  his  faith  and  piety, 
to  his  zeal  for  the  Church  and  respect  for  her  canons.^  He 
acknowledged  that  in  his  reign  no  heretic  dared  open  his 
mouth.^  Almost  the  only  thing  with  which  the  emperor 
could  be  reproached,  was  his  avarice.  After  twenty  years 
of  an  undistinguished  reign,  he  unfortunately  abandoned 
twelve  thousand  captives  of  his  army  to  the  sword  of  the 
Avars,  who  massacred  the  whole  on  his  refusal  to  ransom 
them.  From  this  circumstance  arose  a  military  revolt, 
which  placed  Phocas  upon  the  throne.  This  wretch  not 
only  murdered  the  Emperor  Maurice,  gouty,  and  incapable 
of  defending  himself,  but  also  his  six  sons,  whom  he  caused 
to  be  put  to  death  under  the  eyes  of  their  father,  without 
even  sparing  the  youngest,  who  was  still  at  the  breast,  and 
whom  his  nurse  would  have  saved  by  putting  her  own  child 
in  his  place  ;  but  Maurice,  who  would  not  have  his  child 
preserved  at  such  a  cost,  disclosed  that  pious  deception  to 
the  murderers.  He  died  like  a  Christian  hero,  repeating 
the  words  of  the  psalm,  "  Thou  art  just,  0  Lord,  and  Thy 
judgment  is  right,"  He  had  before  entreated  God  to  expiate 
his  sins  by  a  violent  death  in  this  world,  that  he  might  be 
spared  from  suffering  in  the  other.  This  massacre  did  not 
satisfy  Phocas,  who  sacrificed  the  empress  and  her  three 
daughters,  the  brother  of  Maurice,  and  a  multitude  of  others 
in  his  train.      The  monster  then  sent  his  own  image  and 

1  Epist.,  viii.  5.  "  Ihid.,  v.  43,  and  xi.  25. 

3  Ibid.,  X,  46. 


36  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

that  of  his  wife  to  Rome,  where  the  senate  and  people  re- 
ceived them  with  acclamation. 

Gregory  unfortunately  joined  in  these  mean  acclamations. 
He  carried  these  images  of  his  new  masters,  bathed  in  inno- 
cent blood,  into  the  oratory  of  the  Lateran  palace.^  After- 
wards he  addressed  extraordinary  congratulations  to  Phocas, 
not  in  the  surprise  of  the  first  moment,  but  seven  months 
after  the  crime. ^  "  God,"  said  he,  "  the  sovereign  arbiter  of 
the  life  of  man,  sometimes  raises  up  one  to  punish  the  crimes 
of  many,  as  we  have  experienced  in  our  long  afiliction ;  and 
sometimes  to  console  the  afflicted  hearts  of  many.  He  raises 
another  whose  mercy  fills  them  with  joy,  as  we  hope  from 
your  piety.  Therefore  we  feel  strengthened  by  the  abun- 
dance of  our  joy,  congratulating  ourselves  that  your  goodness 
has  attained  the  imperial  dignity.  Let  heaven  and  earth 
rejoice  with  us !  "  ^  He  also  wrote  to  the  new  empress : 
"  No  tongue  can  express,  nor  mind  conceive,  the  gratitude 
which  we  owe  to  God,  that  your  Serenity  has  attained  the 
empire,  and  that  we  are  delivered  from  the  hard  burden  we 
have  so  long  endured,  and  to  which  has  succeeded  a  gentle 
yoke  which  we  can  bear.  Let  choirs  of  angels  and  voices  of 
men  unite  with  us  to  thank  the  Creator  !  "  ^  It  is  true,  that 
in  this  same  letter  to  Phocas,  and  in  a  subsequent  one,  he 
points  out  to  him  the  duties  of  his  charge,  exhorts  him  to 
amend  the  errors  of  past  reigns,  and  supplicates  him  so  to 
rule,  that  under  him  all  may  enjoy  their  possessions  and  his 
freedom  in  peace.  "  For,"  says  he,  "  there  is  this  difierence 
between  the  barbarous  kings  and  the  emperors  of  the  republic, 
that  the  former  rule  over  slaves,  and  the  latter  over  free 

1  Joan.  Diac,  iv.  20. 

■■'  Epist.,  xiii.  31.     Data  mense  Junii,  indictione  vi. 

*  "De  qua  exultationis  abundantia  roborari  nos  citius  credimus,  qui 
benignitatem  vestrae  pietatis  ad  imperiale  fastigium  pervenisse  gaudemus. 
Lsetentur  coeli  et  exultet  terra,"  Sue— Ibid. 

^  "  Quae  lingua  loqui,  quis  animus  cogitare  sufficit  quantas  de  serenitate 
vestri  imperii  omnipotenti  Deo  gratias  debemus.  .  .  .  Reddatur  ergo 
Creatori  ab  hymnodicis  angelorum  choris  gloria  in  ccelo."— Ibid.,  xiii.  39. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT  37 

men."  ^  This  was  precisely  the  reverse  of  the  truth  :  it  was, 
besides,  a  melancholy  and  guilty  homage  rendered  to  a  man 
who  was  to  become  one  of  the  most  odious  tyrants  of  his  age, 
and  who  had  gained  the  empire  by  a  crime  without  parallel 
even  in  the  annals  of  that  infamous  history. 

This  is  the  only  stain  upon  the  life  of  Gregory.  We  do 
not  attempt  either  to  conceal  or  excuse  it.  It  can  scarcely 
be  explained  by  recalling  all  the  vexations  he  had  suffered 
from  Maurice  and  his  agents,  annoyances  of  which  he  always 
complained  energetically,  though  he  did  not  fail  to  do  justice 
to  the  undeniable  piety  of  the  old  emperor,^  who,  like  all  his 
predecessors,  imagined  himself  entitled  to  judge  and  direct 
the  affairs  of  the  Church,  but  was  in  no  respect  a  persecutor. 
Perhaps,  too,  Gregory  adopted  this  means  to  secure  the  help 
which  he  implored  from  Phocas  against  the  new  incursions 
of  the  Lombards,^  or  to  mollify  beforehand  the  already 
threatening  intentions  of  the  tyrant.*  We  have  seen  that 
he  mingled  advice  and  indirect  lessons  with  his  congratu- 
lations. It  must  also  be  remembered  that  these  flatteries, 
which  we  find  so  repugnant  from  the  pen  of  our  holy  and 
great  pope,  were  in  some  sort  the  official  language  of  those 
times  ;  they  resulted  from  the  general  debasement  of  public 
manners,  and  from  the  tone  of  the  language  invariably  used 
then  at  each  change  of  reign.  His  motives  were  undoubtedly 
pure.  Notwithstanding,  a  stain  remains  upon  his  memory, 
and  a  shadow  upon  the  history  of  the  Church,  which  is  so 
consoling  and  full  of  light  in  this  age  of  storms  and  dark- 

^  "Reformetur  jam  singulis  sub  jugo  imperii  pii  libertas  sua.  Hoc 
namque  inter  reges  gentium  et  imperatores  reipublicse  distat,  quod  reges 
gentium  domini  servorum  sunt,  imperatores  vero  reipublicas  domini  libe- 
rorum." — Epist,  xii.  31. 

-  Compare  Epist.,  v.  43,  to  the  patriarchs  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch, 
and  xi.  25,  to  Maximus  of  Salona,  where  he  says  expressly  of  Maurice, 
"  Omnibus  notum  est  piissimos  dominos  disciplinam  servare,  et  in  causis 
sacerdotalibus  non  miscere." 

^  Compare  Epist.,  xiii.  38. 

*  "His  laudibus  novos  principes  demulcebat,  .  .  .  quia  non  eos  ad 
tyrannidem  ventures  esse  putabat." — Joan.  Diac,  iv.  23. 


38  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

ness.  But  among  the  greatest  and  holiest  of  mortals,  virtue, 
like  human  wisdom,  always  falls  short  in  some  respect. 

Gregory,  who  died  sixteen  months  after  the  advent  of 
Phocas,  had  no  time  either  to  expiate  or  repair  that  weak- 
ness. No  doubt  he  would  have  done  it,  if  occasion  had  been 
given  him.  His  life  demonstrated  nothing  more  clearly  than 
his  boldness  in  presence  of  danger,  and  his  immovable  per- 
severance in  the  pursuit  of  right  and  truth,  whenever  he 
perceived  them.  All  his  career  justifies  the  noble  words 
which  he  wrote  to  his  apocrisarius  or  nuncio  at  Constanti- 
nople :  "  You  ought  to  know  how  I  feel,  I  who  have  resolved 
to  die  rather  than  see  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  degenerate  in 
my  lifetime.  You  know  my  disposition ;  I  bear  long,  but 
when  I  have  once  resolved  to  endure  no  longer,  I  face 
all  dangers  with  joy."^  Save  in  the  deplorable  instance 
which  we  have  pointed  out,  he  always  showed  himself 
faithful  to  the  instructions  which  he  gave  to  an  Illyrian 
bishop  who  lamented  over  the  iniquity  of  the  imperial 
judges :  "  Your  duty  is  to  assist  for  the  cause  of  the  poor 
and  oppressed.  If  you  do  not  succeed,  God  will  remember 
the  intention ;  seek  above  all  things  to  gain  Him  who  reads 
hearts.  As  for  human  terrors  and  favours,  they  are  but  a 
smoke  which  vanishes  before  the  lightest  breath.  Be  assured 
that  it  is  impossible  to  please  God  and  the  wicked  at  the 
same  time  ;  consider  yourself  most  agreeable  to  God  when 
you  perceive  yourself  odious  to  perverse  men.  However, 
even  in  defending  the  poor,  be  grave  and  moderate."  ^ 

But  to  perceive  in  all  their  purity  the  greatness  of  his 

^  "  Mores  meos  bene  cognitos  habes,  quia  diu  porto.  Sed,  si  semel 
deliberavero  non  portare,  contra  pericula  Ifetus  vado."  —  Epist.,  iv.  47, 
The  point  in  question  was  the  affair  of  Maximus  of  Salona  :  the  letter  is 
addressed  to  Sabinian,  who  was  afterwards  his  successor. 

-  "  Fraternitas  tua  opponere  se  pro  pauperibus,  pro  oppressis  debet.  In 
omni  quod  agis  inspectorem  cordis  appete  habere  placatum.  .  .  .  Nam 
humani  terrores  et  gratia  fumo  sunt  similes,  qui  leni  aura  raptus  evanescit. 
Hoc  certissime  scito  quod  placere  Deo  sine  pravis  hominibus  displicere 
nullus  potest,  .  .  .  Ipsa  tamen  defensio  pauperum  moderata  et  gravis  sit." 
— JEpist.,  X.  35, 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  39 

soul  and  the  influence  of  his  genius  upon  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  from  that  Lower  Empire 
which  was  condemned  to  irremediable  decay,  and  where 
the  seeds  of  schism  budded  in  the  bosom  of  abject  ser- 
vitude. Life  and  honour  were  elsewhere.  Gregory  was 
aware  of  it. 

He  did  not  content  himself  with  the  imposing  position 
of  defender  of  Rome,  protector  of  Italy,  and  mediator 
between  the  Greeks  and  Lombards.  He  did  more.  In 
turning  towards  the  Germanic  nations,  he  showed  the  way 
by  which  the  Eoman  Church,  and  with  her  the  mind  and 
future  fate  of  the  West,  could  be  emancipated  from  the 
dishonouring  yoke  of  Byzantium. 

The  Roman  empire  existed  no  longer  in  its  first  form. 
That  climax  of  disgrace  had  come  to  an  end.  The  civilised 
world  was  escaping  from  that  absolute  dominion  exercised 
by  monsters  or  adventurers,  which  has  been  admired  in 
our  own  days  by  some  base  souls  worthy  of  having  lived 
under  Caracalla  or  Arcadius.  Tlie  human  race  had  at  last 
perceived  its  own  shame.  The  yoke  of  a  free  nation,  how- 
ever cruel  and  iniquitous,  may  be  borne  without  blushing ; 
but  to  obey  a  nation  itself  enslaved  by  the  most  repellent 
despotism,  is  to  ask  too  much  of  human  baseness.  The 
whole  world  was  then  in  insurrection  against  Rome,  and 
the  insurrection  had  everywhere  triumphed. 

It  was  necessary  that  the  victorious  Barbai^ians,  and 
those  countries  which  had  been  revivified  by  the  rude 
experience  of  conquest,  should  be  kept  from  identifying 
in  a  common  reprobation  the  odious  phantom  of  old 
imperial  Rome,  and  that  young  Church,  the  sovereign  see 
of  which  God,  by  a  secret  miracle  of  His  providence,  had 
established  in  the  very  centre  of  the  empire  which  had 
persecuted  her  so  cruelly,  which  she  had  in  vain  attempted 
to  regenerate  after  having  converted  it,  but  which  she 
was  shortly  to  eclipse  and  replace  in  the  world.  It  was 
necessary  to  keep  Constantinople  from  imagining  itself  the 


40  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

heir  of  Rome,  and  planting  its  degrading  and  egotistical 
dominion  beside  the  protecting,  and  up  to  this  time  irre- 
proachable, authority  of  the  popes.  The  Franks,  the 
Visigoths,  the  Lombards,  and  the  Anglo-Saxons,  entered 
on  the  scene ;  they  inaugurated  the  destiny  of  races  which, 
after  the  course  of  thirteen  centuries,  are  still  at  the  head 
of  humanity ;  they  would  willingly  bow  their  youthful  and 
unsubdued  force  before  the  pure  and  new-born  majesty  of 
the  Church,  but  not  before  the  decrepid  servitude  of  the 
Byzantine  empire. 

Gregory  was  the  man  predestined  to  the  salutary  and 
decisive  work  of  transition.  The  spiritual  and  temporal 
independence  of  the  West  manifested  itself  in  him.  He 
was  the  first  pope  who  paid  special  attention  to  the 
Western  races,  and  associated  himself,  by  directing  it,  with 
the  progress  of  the  German  conquerors.  He  was  their 
friend,  their  educator,  and  their  master.  To  assimilate 
them  to  the  Church,  to  adapt  her  to  their  instincts  and 
reason,  without  compromising  the  traditional  element  and 
sovereign  authority,  the  immovable  centre  of  which  was  to 
remain  standing  in  the  midst  of  desolated  Rome,  nothing 
less  would  suffice  than  the  tender  and  patient  genius  of 
Gregory  and  his  successors. 

Long  crushed  between  the  Lombards  and  Byzantines, 
between  the  unsoftened  ferocity  of  the  Barbarians  and  the 
vexatious  decrepitude  of  despotism,  Gregory,  with  that 
instinctive  perception  of  future  events  which  God  some- 
times grants  to  pure  souls,  sought  elsewhere  a  support  for 
the  Roman  Church.  His  eyes  were  directed  to  the  new 
races,  who  were  scarcely  less  ferocious  than  the  Lombards, 
but  who  did  not,  like  them,  weigh  upon  Italy  and  Rome, 
and  who  already  exhibited  elements  of  strength  and  con- 
tinuance. 

The  West  separated  itself  more  and  more  from  the 
East.^  The  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  despite  the  proud 
^  Lau.,  op.  cit.,  pp.  179  and  189. 


/C 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  4 I 

titles  with  which  he  concealed  his  servitude,  gradually 
fell  into  the  first  rank  of  the  imperial  household.  The 
patriarchs  of  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Jerusalem,  were 
about  to  be  swept  away  by  Islamism.  Rome  alone  re- 
mained standing,  incessantly  insulted,  but  not  yet  enslaved. 
Africa  and  Illyria,  which  were  still  attached  to  the  patri- 
archate of  the  West,  of  which  Rome  was  the  see,  were 
soon  to  fall,  one  under  the  sword  of  the  Arabs,  the  other, 
to  identify  itself  with  the  domains  of  the  Caesar  of  Con- 
stantinople. But  the  great  Churches  of  the  new  northern 
kingdom  could  make  up,  and  more  than  make  up,  for 
that  loss. 

y  The  rupture  of  all  political  ties  between  the  Roman 
empire  and  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain,  had  naturally 
loosened  the  links  which  attached  the  Churches  of  these 
countries  to  Rome.  To  renew  these  links,  and  to  preserve 
the  Church  from  sinking  under  the  feudal  institutions 
which  were  to  prevail  in  the  new  order  of  social  affairs, 
the  best  thing  that  could  be  done  was  to  form  alliances 
with  the  Germanic  races  which  had  replaced  Roman 
dominion.  Gregory  took  that  glorious  and  salutary  initia- 
tive. We  shall  see  further  on  what  he  did  for  Spain  and 
Great  Britain.  Let  us  first  exhibit  his  choice  of  Gaul,  the 
Church  and  kingdom  of  the  Franks,  to  become  the  nucleus 
of  the  great  Germanic  Christendom.  He  thus  attached  to 
himself  the  only  nation  among  the  Barbarians  which,  while 
Arianism  prevailed  everywhere,  remained  orthodox.  He 
founded  the  alliance  which,  two  centuries  after,  finally  freed 
the  Holy  See  from  every  foreign  yoke,  from  Byzantine 
dominion,  as  well  as  from  the  violence  of  the  Lombards. 

It  does  not  appear  that  he  called  the  Franks  to  the  help 
of  Italy  against  the  Lombards,  like  his  predecessor,  Pela- 
gius  II.  ;  they  had  come  already,  and  three  Frank  invasions  ^ 
had  produced  only  an  increase  of  calamity  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula.  He  took  another 
1  In  580,  589,  and  590. 


42  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

way,  and  entered,  in  the  first  place,  into  the  closest  rela- 
tions with  the  Church  of  Gaul,  on  account  of  lands  which 
the  Roman  Church  possessed  in  Provence,  and  which  had 
been  long  deserted,  like  all  the  other  vast  territories  which 
already  constituted  the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter.  A  holy 
monk  of  the  isle  of  Lerins,  Virgilius,  was  then  bishop  of 
Aries,  and  metropolitan  of  Provence.  Gregory  gave  him 
the  pallium,  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  the  metro- 
politan, and  made  him  his  vicar  in  the  domains  of  King 
Childebert,  enjoining  him  specially  to  devote  himself  to 
the  work  of  rooting  out  the  radical  vices  of  the  Gallo-Erank 
Church,  which  were  simony,  and  the  election  of  laymen  to 
bishoprics.-^  He  took  occasion  from  this  to  address  himself 
directly  to  the  young  king,  Childebert  II.,  who  reigned  in 
Burgundy  and  Austrasia,  and  to  his  mother  Brunehaut,  as 
much  to  recommend  Virgilius  to  their  support  in  the  execu- 
tion of  the  apostolical  decrees,  as  to  ask  their  protection  for 
the  priest  Candidus,  whom  he  had  charged  with  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  pontifical  possessions  in  Gaul.  It  is  in 
one  of  these  letters  to  Brunehaut  that  we  find,  on  the 
subject  of  the  education  which  she  had  given  to  her 
descendants,  and  other  virtues  supposed  to  belong  to  her, 
those  emphatic  compliments  with  which  he  has  been  so 
often  reproached,  and  which  agree '•  so  little  with  all  that 
we  know  of  the  life  of  that  too  notorious  princess.  But  it 
cannot  be  denied,  that  along  with  these  praises,  borrowed 
from  the  adulatory  style  of  the  Byzantine  court,  the  forms 
of  which  he  had  too  much  accustomed  himself  to  imitate, 
Gregory  addressed  to  the  young  king  Childebert  the  noblest 
language  which  had  ever  been  addressed  by  a  pontiff  to  a 
king.  He  began,  in  the  words  which  follow,  to  make 
audible  that  great  papal  voice  which,  for  a  thousand  years, 
was  to  be  the  supreme  organ  of  justice  and  humanity  to 
princes  and  nations : — "  As  much  as  the  royal  dignity  is 
above  common  men,  your  throne  elevates  you  above  the 
^  Ejnst.,  iv.  50. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  43 

other  thrones  of  nations.  It  is  a  small  thing  to  be  a  king 
when  others  are  so,  but  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be  a  Catholic, 
when  others  do  not  share  the  same  honour.  As  a  great 
lamp  shines  with  all  the  brilliancy  of  its  light  in  the  deepest 
darkness  of  night,  so  the  splendour  of  your  faith  shines 
amid  the  voluntary  obscurity  of  other  nations.  ...  In 
order,  then,  to  surpass  other  men  in  works  as  well  as  in 
faith,  let  not  your  Excellency  cease  to  show  yourself 
merciful  to  your  subjects.  If  there  are  things  which 
offend  you,  punish  none  without  discussion.  You  shall 
please  the  King  of  kings  best  when,  restraining  your 
authority,  you  believe  yourself  to  have  less  privilege  than 
power."  ^ 

After  the  premature  death  of  Childebert  II.  in  596, 
and  during  the  minority  of  his  heirs,  Brunehaut,  who  was 
regent  of  his  two  kingdoms,  the  east  and  south-east  of 
Gaul,  continued  an  increasingly  close  and  frequent  inter- 
course with  Gregory.  She  asked  the  pallium  for  the 
Bishop  of  Autun,  and  he  accorded  that  envied  distinction 
to  the  Burgundian  prelate,  only  while  insisting  anew  upon 
the  necessity  of  extirpating  simony,  destroying  the  remnants 
of  idolatry,  which  still  mingled  with  the  Christianity  of  the 
Eranks  and  Burgoudes,  reforming  the  scandalous  life  of 
some  priests  who  lived  with  women,  and  lastly,  putting  an 
end  to  that  invasion  of  unprepared  laymen  into  the  priest- 
hood, and  even  into  the  episcopate,  which  he  energetically 
called  the  heresy  of  neophytesr' 

He  sent  to  her,  in  the  quality  of  legate,  and  in  order  to 
hold  a  council  for  the  cure  of  these  irregularities,  Cyriac, 
the  abbot  of  his  own  monastery  of  St.  Andrea  at  Rome. 
This  council  was  never  assembled  ;  but  Brunehaut,  and  her 

^  "Si  qua  sunt  quse  ejus  animum  offendere  valeant,  ea  indiscussa  non 
sinat.  Tunc  enim  vere  Regi  regum  .  .  .  amplius  placebit,  si,  potestatem 
suam  restringens,  minus  sibi  credideret  licere  quam  potest." — Epist.,  vi.  6. 
Do  not  these  words  anticipate  the  fine  maxim  of  our  old  jurisconsult 
Bodin,  "  Universal  power  does  not  give  universal  right '"  ? 

'^  Kpist.,  vii.  5.     Compare  x.  33,  xi.  63,  69. 


44  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

grandson  Thierry,  king  of  Burgundy,  sent  an  embassy  to 
Gregory  in  602,  to  negotiate,  by  his  mediation,  a  treaty 
of  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  with  the  Byzantine 
emperor,  against  the  Avars,  who  threatened  the  empire 
and  the  Frank  kingdoms  equally.  The  political  and  social 
part  played  by  the  papacy  developed  itself  thus  gradually 
and  naturally  under  the  pontificate  of  the  first  monk  who 
had  occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  The  murder  of 
Maurice,  it  is  true,  prevented  the  success  of  this  negotia- 
tion ;  but  the  Burgundian  ambassador  was  charged,  besides, 
to  obtain  from  the  pope  the  confirmation  of  two  monasteries 
and  an  hospital,  which  Brunehaut  had  founded  at  Autun,^ 

It  was  then,  and  at  the  express  request  of  the  Prankish 
crown,  that  Gregory  issued  that  famous  charter,  in  which, 
for  the  first  time,  the  direct  subordination  of  temporal 
power  to  spiritual  is  clearly  set  forth  and  recognised.  The 
inviolability  of  persons  and  property,  and  the  electoral  free- 
dom of  the  three  new  monastic  communities  of  Autun, 
were  placed  under  the  safeguard  of  papal  authority,  and  of 
a  penalty  which  is  thus  declared :  "  If  any  king,  bishop, 
judge,  or  other  secular  person,  knowing  this  constitution, 
shall  venture  to  infringe  it,  let  him  be  deprived  of  the 
dignity  of  his  power  and  honour,  and  let  him  know  that 
he  has  rendered  himself  guilty  before  the  tribunal  of  God. 
And  if  he  does  not  restore  that  which  he  has  wickedly 
taken  away,  or  lament  with,  fit  penitence  the  unlawful  acts 
he  has  done,  let  him  be  debarred  from  the  holy  body  and 
blood  of  our  God  and  Saviour,  and  remain  subject  in  the 
eternal  judgment  to  a  severe  retribution,"  ^ 

^  The  one  for  women,  dedicated  to  our  Lady  and  St.  John  ;  the  other 
for  men,  dedicated  to  St.  Martin  :  the  hospital  in  honour  of  St.  Ando- 
chius  was  also  a  monastery  for  monks. 

^  "  Si  quis  vero  regum,  sacerdotum,  judicum,  personarumque  secula- 
rium  hanc  constitutionis  nostrjc  paginam  agnoscens,  contra  earn  venire 
tentaverit,  potestatis  honorisque  sui  dignitate  careat  reumque  se  divino 
judicio  de  perpetrata  iniquitate  cognoscat.  Et  nisi  vel  ea  quaj  ab  illo 
male  ablata  sunt  restituerit,  vel  digna  pcenitentia  illicite  acta  defleverit, 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  45 

Thus  the  hand  of  the  Church  began  to  write,  but  with 
the  consent  of  the  elective  and  limited  royalty  of  conquering 
races,  that  new  law  of  the  West  which,  five  centuries  later 
than  the  monk  Gregory  I.,  was  to  be  appealed  to  and  applied 
in  its  full  extent  by  the  monk  Gregory  VII.  and  his  suc- 
cessors. Nothing  can  better  depict  the  difference  of  senti- 
ment and  attitude  displayed  by  the  papacy  towards  the 
kings  of  the  Germanic  nations  and  the  Byzantine  emperors, 
than  the  contrast  between  this  document  and  the  almost 
passive  obedience  which  St.  Gregory  professed  to  the  im- 
perial court,  even  in  his  most  energetic  protests  against 
certain  of  its  acts.  And  nothing  contradicts  more  entirely 
the  chimerical  distinction  between  the  Roman  emperors 
and  the  Barbarian  kings,  which  he  attempts  to  establish  in 
his  letter  to  Phocas. 

Gregory  did  not  confine  himself  to  these  relations  with 
the  princes  and  bishops  of  Austrasia  and  Burgundy.  He 
wrote  to  Olotharius  II.,  king  of  Neustria,  and  to  the  prin- 
cipal bishops  of  that  portion  of  Gaul,  recommending  them 
to  undertake  the  work  of  converting  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the 
object  of  his  special  predilection,  which  he  had  never  lost 
sight  of  amid  the  most  serious  troubles,  and  in  which 
Brunehaut  co-operated  zealously.  On  this  account  he  also 
entered  into  correspondence  with  the  principal  bishops  of  the 
north  and  west  of  Gaul :  he  enjoined  them,  as  he  had  urged 
the  bishops  of  Burgundy  and  Austrasia,  with  the  most 
earnest  entreaties,  to  combat  the  various  ecclesiastical  abuses, 
unlawful  ordinations,  and  specially  simony,  which  he  every- 
where calls  heresy,  and  which  made  frightful  progress  every 

a  sacratissimo  corpore  ac  sanguine  Dei  at  Domini  nostri  Redemptoris 
J.  C.  alienus  fiat  atque  in  reterno  examine  districtse  ultioni  subjaceat." — 
Epist.,  xiii.  8,  9,  10.  Oudin  and  Launoy  have  disputed  the  authenticity 
of  this  clause,  but  it  has  been  put  beyond  a  doubt  by  Mabillon  and  the 
Benedictine  editors  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great.  There  are  three  similar 
charters  for  the  three  monasteries.  Yepes  gives  a  fourth,  not  unlike  them 
in  the  main,  in  favour  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Medard,  at  Soissons,  but  it 
is  unanimously  regarded  as  false. 


46  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

day,  disguising  itself  under  a  thousand  different  forms, 
infecting  already  all  the  grades  of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy 
in  all  Christian  countries,  and  threatening  to  consume  like 
a  cancer  the  vigour  and  beauty  of  the  Church,  thanks  to 
the  connivance  and  complicity  of  too  many  bishops.^ 

In  all  his  relations  with  the  bishops,  not  only  of  Gaul, 
but  of  entire  Christendom,  he  always  manifested  the  affec- 
tionate respect  with  which  the  episcopal  character  and  form 
inspired  him,  and  which  he  had  so  eloquently  expressed  in 
the  contest  touching  the  title  of  universal  patriarch.  "  God 
forbid,"  he  wrote,  "that  I  should  desire  to  infringe  the 
decrees  of  our  ancestors  in  any  Church,  to  the  prejudice  of 
my  colleagues  in  the  priesthood;  for  I  should  thus  injure 
myself  by  interfering  with  the  rights  of  my  brethren." 
And,  elsewhere,  "  Receive  this  as  certain  in  matters  of 
ecclesiastical  privilege,  that  we  will  preserve  its  rights  to 
each  individual  Church,  as  we  defend  our  own.  ...  I 
desire  to  honour  by  every  means  my  brethren  in  the  epis- 
copate."^ At  the  same  time  he  gave  to  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Holy  See  a  range  and  authority  which  had  never  been 
better  established.  He  extended  it  even  to  Jerusalem,  and 
beyond  the  extremities  of  the  Roman  world,  to  Ireland  and 
Iberia.  He  replied  to  applications  for  advice  from  Caucasus, 
and  encouraged  the  attempts  made  to  convert  Persia.  He 
reduced  to  due  limits  the  power  of  the  metropolitans,  who 
seemed  disposed  to  assume  an  authority  superior  to  that  of 
the  other  bishops,  and  independent  of  the  Holy  See ;  he 
settled  that  none  of  them  should  be  ordained  without  the 
confirmation  of  the  pope.  His  struggles  with  the  metro- 
politans of  Cagliari,  of  Ravenna,  and,  above  all,  of  Salona, 

1  "Has  pestiferas  hasreses  cernens  per  sacerdotum  conniventiam  sive 
taciturnitatem  magis  magisque  diffusis  muneribus  quasi  pestifer  cancer 
.  .  .  corrodere  .   .  .  ac  corrumpere."— JOAN.  DiAC,  Vit.  S.  Greg.,  iii.  4. 

2  "Mihi  injuriam  facio,  si  patrum  meorum  jura  perturbo." — Epist.,  ii. 
25.  "  Sicut  nostra  defendimus,  ita  singulis  quibusque  Ecclesiis  sua  jura 
servamus.  .  .  .  Fratres  meos  per  orania  honorare  cuY)io."—Epist.,  ii.  47. 
Compare  i.  23,  iii.  29. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  47 

were  among  the  greatest  trials  of  his  pontificate ;  but  he 
overcame  all  resistance.  His  vigilant  eye  and  eloquent 
voice  everywhere  stimulated  the  re-establishment  and  exact 
observance  of  the  canons,  and  especially  the  freedom  of 
episcopal  elections,  which  were  then  in  the  hands  of  the 
clergy  and  people  of  each  diocese.  Very  urgent  motives 
were  necessary  to  induce  him  to  limit  that  liberty,  or 
even  indirectly  to  interfere  in  that  choice.  During  the 
vacancy  of  the  see  of  Milan,  when  it  was  announced  to  him 
that  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends  would  be  elected,  he 
answered,  "  I  have  long  resolved  never  to  meddle,  for  the 
advantage  of  any  one  whatsoever,  in  the  collation  of  spiritual 
charges  :  I  shall  confine  myself  to  following  with  my  prayers 
the  election  which  you  are  about  to  make,  in  order  that 
God  may  grant  you  a  pastor  who  will  lead  you  in  the 
pastures  of  the  divine  word."  ^ 

But  the  less  he  was  disposed  to  interfere  in  the  designa- 
tion of  those  elected,  the  more  he  required  that  they  should 
rigidly  fulfil  the  conditions  of  canonical  laws.^  He  did  not 
simply  refuse  to  recognise  a  person  elected  contrary  to  the 
canons ;  he  excluded  him  from  all  ecclesiastical  dignities, 
and  sometimes  went  so  far  as  to  subject  him  to  a  peni- 
tentiary detention  in  some  monastery,  in  company  with  the 
bishops  who  had  consecrated  him.^  He  did  not  hesitate  to 
depose  the  bishops  who  showed  themselves  unworthy  of  their 
charge."^  Upon  those  whom  he  judged  worthy  he  exercised 
an  attentive  and  indefatigable  watchfulness,  to  constrain 
them  to  residence,  to  pastoral  visits,  and  to  that  great  art 
of  preaching  which  he  himself  practised  with  so  much 
eloquence  and  assiduity  even  amid  the  harassments  of  the 
supreme  pontificate.      He  recommended  them  to  make  their 

1  "Quia  antiquze  mese  deliberationis  intentio  est  ad  suscipienda  pas- 
toralis  curEe  onera  pro  nuUius  unquam  misceri  persona,  orationibus  pro- 
sequor  electionem  vestram." — Epist.,  iii.  29. 

'  LAU.,  op.  cit,  p.  115.  3  Epist.,  xiii.  45. 

*  For  example,  Demetrius,  Bishop  of  Naples. 


48  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

internal  life  in  harmony  with  the  external  solemnity  of  their 
functions  and  pious  demonstrations ;  for,  said  he,  prayer  is 
vain  if  conduct  is  evil/  He  was  not  content  with  regular 
morals  and  irreproachable  faith;  he  would  have  them  besides 
sufficiently  endowed  with  energy  and  capacity ;  for  "  in  our 
times,"  he  said,  "  we  must  confide  power  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  will  not  be  solely  engrossed  by  the  salvation 
of  souls,  but  will  also  be  mindful  of  the  defence  and 
temporal  interests  of  their  inferiors."  ^  His  truly  paternal 
authority  disdained  puerile  and  troublesome  homage.  He 
turned  away  with  repugnance  from  the  exaggerated  de- 
monstrations of  respect  towards  himself  in  which  certain 
bishops  took  pleasure.  "  I  love  not,"  he  said,  "  these  vain 
and  foolish  exaggerations."  ^  He  fixed  for  every  five  years, 
instead  of  every  three,  the  term  of  the  periodical  and  obli- 
gatory visit  of  the  bishops  to  Rome.  The  priests  and  all 
the  orders  of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  were  objects  of  the 
same  solicitude  and  severe  vigilance. 

His  vast  correspondence  testifies  at  once  to  the  unwearied 
activity  of  his  administration,  his  ardent  zeal  for  justice 
and  discipline,  and  the  increasing  development  of  questions 
of  canonical  law  and  discipline  which  began  to  replace, 
especially  in  the  West,  the  dogmatic  questions  which  had 
been  sufficiently  elaborated  in  the  five  general  councils  held 
up  to  that  time. 

Those  argus  eyes  which  incessantly  superintended  the 
Christian  world  *  did  not  pass  over  the  vast  domains  of 
the  Church  which,  under  the  name  of  the  patrimony  of 
St.  Peter,  were  already  formed,  not  only  in  Gaul,  as  has 
been  already  seen,  but  in  Africa,  Corsica,  Dalmatia,  Sicily, 

1  "Nam  inanis  fit  oratio,  ubi   prava  est  actio." — Epist.,  xi.  51,  to   the 
bishops  of  Sicily. 

2  "  Talis  hoc  tempore  in  arce  regiminis  ...  qui  ...  de  extrinseca  sub- 
jectorum  utilitate  et  cautela  sciat  esse  soWicitns."— Ibid.,  x.  62. 

3  "  Quia  vana  et  stulta  superfluitas  noc  delectat." — Ibid.,  i.  36. 
^"Velut  argus  quidem  luminosissimus  per  totitus  mundi  latitudinem 

.  .  .  oculos  circumtulerit."— Joan.  Diac,  ii.  55. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT  49 

and  especially  in  the  south  of  Italy.  Before  Gregory, 
negligence  and  confusion  reigned  everywhere  in  these  lands. 
He  neglected  no  means  o£  re-establishing  order  and  re- 
storing them  to  their  just  value.  His  letters  show  that 
he  considered  no  detail  beneath  him  to  attain  that  end, 
and  that  it  was  his  special  endeavour  to  rule  them  with 
the  most  exact  justice.  The  spirit  of  the  disciple  of  St. 
Benedict,  the  monk  who,  careful,  attentive,  and  just,  appre- 
ciated so  highly  the  rights  of  labour,  is  evident  at  every 
step.  He  wrote  to  Peter,  the  administrator  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  Sicily,  that  letter  which  deserves  to  be  inscribed 
by  the  side  of  the  noblest  titles  of  the  papacy :  "  We  under- 
stand that  the  price  paid  for  corn  to  the  peasant  subjects 
of  the  Church  is  lowered  in  times  of  abundance  :  we  desire 
that  they  shall  always  be  paid  according  to  the  current 
price.  .  .  .  "We  forbid  that  the  farmers  shall  pay  more  than 
the  rate  fixed  in  their  lease  ;  and  we  shall  withdraw  all  the 
disgraceful  exactions  which  shall  exceed  the  sums  prescribed 
in  proportion  to  their  ability.  And  in  order  that  no  one 
after  our  death  may  be  able  to  impose  these  burdens  anew, 
let  them  be  invested  in  their  lands  by  a  written  form  which 
shall  state  the  sum  which  each  one  has  to  pay.  .  .  .  We  would 
not  have  the  coffers  of  the  Church  soiled  with  sordid  gains."  ^ 
The  devoted  friend  of  the  peasants,  who  had  scarcely 
escaped  from  the  deadly  pressure  of  Roman  taxation  when 
they  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Barbarian  conquerors,  less 
skilfully  rapacious  but  more  brutal,  he  especially  employed 
his  power  in  reducing  their  burdens,  guaranteeing  the 
freedom  of  their  marriages,  the  security  of  their  possessions, 

1  "  Quia  nos  acculum  Ecclesize  ex  lucris  turpibus  nolumus  inquinari." — 
Epist.,  i.  44.  Compare  ii.  32.  In  the  last  we  find  this  often-quoted 
passage,  which  indicates  at  once  the  simplicity  and  modesty  of  the  great 
man: — "You  have  sent  me  a  bad  horse  and  five  good  asses.  I  cannot 
mount  the  horse  because  it  is  bad,  nor  the  asses  because  they  are  asses  ; 
if  you  would  help  to  support  us,  send  us  things  which  are  suitable  to 
us."  The  ecclesiastical  domains  in  Sicily  maintained  four  hundred 
stallions. 

VOL.  II.  D 


50  ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT 

and  the  inviolability  of  their  inheritances.  He  placed  at 
the  head  of  his  domains,  in  each  province,  no  longer  lay- 
men, but  ecclesiastics  imbued  with  his  own  spirit,  from 
whom  he  exacted  a  promise  before  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter, 
that  they  would  manage  the  patrimony  of  the  Church  as 
the  treasury  of  labourers  and  the  poor.  He  extended  this 
solicitude  even  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  possessions ; 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  see  the  head  of  the  universal  Church 
turn  from  his  struggles  with  Byzantium  and  the  Lombards 
to  take  in  hand  the  interest  of  some  obscure  husbandmen  of 
the  island  of  Sardinia.  "  I  have  learned,"  he  wrote  to  the 
Bishop  of  Cagliari,  "  that  certain  laymen,  charged  with  the 
administration  of  your  patrimony,  have  committed  depre- 
dations to  the  detriment  of  your  peasants,  and  refused  to 
render  an  account :  it  becomes  you,  after  having  examined 
into  this  with  the  utmost  rigour,  to  decide,  according  to  the 
justice  of  the  case,  between  your  peasants  and  these  men, 
in  order  to  make  them  if  possible  disgorge  their  prey."  ^ 

He  was  everywhere  the  man  of  justice  and  freedom.  It 
was  not  alone  the  interests  of  the  Church,  its  possessions 
and  vassals,  which  inspired  his  zeal.  He  endeavoured  to 
defend  the  rights  and  liberty  of  all,  by  the  influence  of  his 
spiritual  authority  and  the  freedom  of  his  pontifical  language, 
against  the  exactions,  the  arbitrary  violence,  and  cruelty  of 
the  imperial  magistrates ;  ^  and,  addressing  himself  to  the 
ex-consul  Leontius,  the  envoy  of  the  Emperor  Maurice,  he 
set  down  this  great  principle  of  Christian  policy,  always 
ignored,  but  always  undeniable  :  "  You  should  watch  over 
the  liberty  of  those  whom  you  judge  as  over  your  own ;  and 
if  you  would  hinder   your  superiors  from  trampling  your 

1  "  In  rusticorum  vestrorum  deprsedationibus  .  .  .  deprehensi.  .  .  . 
Convenit  inter  eos  Ecclesiseque  vestr?e  rusticos  causam  examinari  sub- 
tilius." — Epist.,  ix.  65. 

*  "  Libertatem  uniuscujusque  hominis  contra  judicum  insolentias  liberis 
vocibus  defendebat  .  .  .  cunctorum  judicum  cupiditates  vel  scelera 
quasi  cuneo  frenoque  pontificii  sui  .  .  .  restringebat." — Joan.  Diac, 
ii.  47,  48. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  $1 

freedom  under  foot,  know  how  to  honour  and  guard  that  of 
your  inferiors."  ^ 

All  who  were  oppressed,  all  the  victims  of  power  or 
wickedness,  found  in  him  a  champion."  He  interfered  in- 
dignantly concerning  "  the  atrocious  and  unheard-of  crime  " 
committed  by  a  vassal  of  the  diocese  of  Messina,  in  carrying 
away  his  godson's  young  wife  to  sell  her  to  another :  and 
threatened  with  canonical  punishment  not  the  guilty  person 
only,  but  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  who  left  such  attempts 
unpunished.^ 

It  might  be  said  that  he  anticipated  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  this  preamble  to  an  act  of  enfranchisement.  "  Since  the 
Redeemer  and  Creator  of  the  world  made  Himself  incarnate 
in  the  form  of  humanity,  in  order  to  break  the  chain  of  our 
slavery  by  the  grace  of  freedom,  and  to  restore  us  to  our 
pristine  liberty,  it  is  well  and  wise  to  restore  the  benefit 
of  original  liberty  to  men  whom  nature  has  made  free,  and 
whom  the  laws  of  men  have  bowed  under  the  yoke  of  servi- 
tude. For  this  reason  we  make  you,  Montanus  and  Thomas, 
servants  of  the  holy  Roman  Church,  which  we  also  serve 
with  the  help  of  God,  free  from  this  day,  and  Roman  citizens, 
and  we  make  over  to  you  all  your  stock  of  money."  *  Even 
in  his  theological  expositions,  in  his  commentaries  on  Job, 
this  image  of  slavery  still  pursues  him  :  "  The  penitent  sinner 
here  below,"  says  he,  "  is  like  a  slave  who  has  fled  from  his 
master,  but  who  is  not  yet  free :  he  has  deserted  his  sins 
by  contrition,  but  he  must  still  fear  the  chastisement.  He 
will  be  truly  enfranchised,  truly  free,  only  in  heaven,  where 


1  "  Libertatem  eorum  .  .  .  ut  vestram  specialiter  attendere  debetis  .  .  . 
subjectorum  vestrorum  honorando  libertatem  custodite." — Epist.,  x.  51. 

-  "  Ab  adversis  potestatibus  prasgravatos  fortissimus  miles  Christi  Grego- 
rius  viriliter  defendebat." — Joan.  Diac,  iv.  21. 

2  Epist.,  vi.  13. 

*  "  Dirupto  quo  tenebamur  capti  vinculo  servitutis  .  .  .  salubriter  agitur, 
si  homines,  quos  ab  initio  natura  liberos  protulit,  et  jus  gentium  jugo  sub- 
stituit  servitutis,  in  ea  qua  nati  fuerant  manumittentis  libertate  reddantur." 
—Ibid.,  vi.  12. 


52  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

he  can  no  longer  doubt  his  pardon,  where  he  shall  lose  even 
the  recollection  of  his  fault,  and  where  he  shall  taste  the 
serenity  and  joy  of  freedom."  ^ 

Until  this  terrible  stain  of  slavery  could  be  entirely  effaced 
in  the  full  light  of  Christianity,  Gregory  ordained  that  every 
pagan  or  Jewish  slave  who  desired  to  become  a  Christian 
should  be  freed  at  the  cost  of  the  Church  :  above  all,  he 
would  not  suffer  Christians  to  remain  the  slaves  of  Jews. 
When  he  could  not  free  them  otherwise  by  legal  means,  he 
caused  them  to  be  redeemed  out  of  the  ecclesiastical  treasury." 
However,  he  checked  energetically  the  rigorous  measures  and 
popular  violence  to  which  the  Jews,  in  the  midst  of  new- 
born Christendom,  were  already  exposed.  His  conduct  and 
precepts  on  this  subject  formed  a  striking  contrast  to 
the  odious  persecution  then  inflicted  by  the  intolerant  zeal 
of  the  new  Christians  in  Gaul  and  Spain  upon  the  children 
of  Israel.^  He  strictly  interdicted  the  bishops  of  Aries  and 
Marseilles  from  baptizing  them  by  force.  He  obliged  the 
bishops  of  Terracina,  of  Palermo,  and  Cagliari  to  restore  to 
them  the  synagogues  from  which  they  had  been  expelled. 
"  It  is  by  gentleness,"  he  wrote  to  these  prelates,  "  by  bene- 
volence and  exhortations  that  we  must  lead  the  unbelievers 
back  to  unity,  lest  we  alienate  by  terrors  and  menaces  those 
whom  charitable  preaching  and  the  fear  of  the  last  judgment 
shall  not  have  established  in  the  faith.  We  must  use  such 
moderation  with  them  that  they  will  not  resist  us ;  but  we 
must  never  constrain  them  against  their  will,  since  it  is 
written,  '  Offer  yourselves  a  willing  sacrifice.'  "  * 

^  "  Servus  ergo  hie  jam  fugit  dominum,  sed  liber  non  est.  .  .  .  Ibi  ergo 
.  ,  .  ubi  jam  .  .  .  de  ejus  indulgentia  liber  exsultet." — Moral.,  i.  iv.  c.  36. 

^  "Si  quos  Christianorum  pro  longitudine  itineris  per  provincias  ab 
Hebrseorum  servitio  per  legalem  violentiam  liberare  non  poterat,  suis  pretiis 
redumendos  esse  censebat." — Joan.  Diac,  iv.  44.     Compare  46. 

3  Chilperic,  king  of  Neustria,  had  them  baptized  by  force  in  582.  Sigi- 
bert,  king  of  the  Visigoths,  made  a  law  in  613  to  scourge  and  exile  from 
Spain  all  Jews  who  would  not  consent  to  be  baptized. 

^  Epist.,  i.  35  ;  vii.  5,  2. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  53 

It  may  be  aflSrmed  that  this  sentiment  of  intelligent  and 
liberal  charity  was  the  leading  principle  of  his  generous 
efforts  to  root  out  the  remains  of  paganism,  as  well  as  those 
of  heresy  and  schism,  from  the  countries  where  his  authority 
transcended  every  other.  And  if  he  sometimes  appears  to 
derogate  from  this  by  rigorous  measures,  which  we  lament 
to  find  in  the  history  of  so  noble  a  life,  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  these  fell  always  far  short  of  the  severity  autho- 
rised by  the  laws  and  manners  of  his  time.  Thus  it  is 
lamentable  to  see  him  lend  his  authority  to  the  corporal 
punishment  of  the  Barbaricians/  a  pagan  tribe  from  Africa, 
whom  the  Vandals  had  left  in  the  island  of  Sardinia ;  and 
elsewhere  to  enjoin,  now  that  a  higher  rate  of  taxes  should 
be  exacted  from  the  pagans  who  refused  to  be  converted,^ 
and  now  that  the  Jews  should  be  allured  to  baptism  by  the 
bait  of  taking  off  a  third  from  the  rent  of  their  farms. 

For  this  proceeding  he  gave  the  melancholy  reason  which 
has  since  served  other  proselytisers  :  "  If  they  are  not  sincerely 
converted  themselves,  their  children  at  least  will  be  baptized 
with  better  will."^  But  even  this  was  an  improvement 
upon  the  custom  of  judges  and  even  bishops,  who  made  the 
peasants  pay  for  permission  to  worship  their  gods,  and  even 
continued  to  extort  that  tribute  after  these  pagans  had  been 
converted.  He  was  careful  to  interdict  all  vexatious  taxes 
imposed  upon  old  or  new  Catholics  under  pretence  of  heresy, 
and  every  kind  of  violence  against  schismatics,  however 
obstinate.*     He   succeeded,   notwithstanding,   in   destroying 

^  "  Jam  Barbaricinos,  Sardos  et  Campanice  rusticos,  tarn  piEedicationibus 
quam  verberibus  emendates  a  paganizandi  vanitate  removerat." — Joan, 
DiAC,  iii.  I. 

2  Epist.,  iv.  26.  I  cannot  but  recall  here  that,  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  Puritans  of  Maryland  employed  precisely  the  same  means,  when  they 
had  the  majority,  to  pervert  the  Catholics  whom  they  had  received  into 
that  colony,  which  was  founded  on  the  express  stipulation  of  religious 
liberty  for  all. — See  Ed.  Laboulaye,  Histoire  des  Etats-Unis,  t.  i. 

2  Epist.,  V.  8.  This  was  repeated  by  Mme,  de  Maintenon  after  the  revo- 
cation of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 

*  "Sub  prsetextu  hseresis  afHigi  quempiam  veraciter  profitentem  fidem 


54  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

in  Africa  the  heresy  of  the  Donatists,  which  had  lasted 
nearly  two  centuries,  and  which  had  consumed  the  strength 
of  St.  Augustine :  he  proceeded  in  this  matter  with  as  much 
prudence  as  energy,  respecting  the  ancient  customs  which 
were  not  contrary  to  the  Catholic  faith,  and  refusing  to 
approve  of  the  too  rigorous  measures  decreed  by  the  Council 
of  Carthage  against  all  bishops  who  did  not  pursue  the 
heretics  with  sufficient  ardour,-^  After  this  council,  held  in 
594,  the  Donatists  disappear  from  history. 

He  had  also  the  good  fortune  to  terminate  the  schism  of 
Aquileia,  which  had  for  half  a  century  separated  from  the 
body  of  the  Church  the  bishops  of  Venetia  and  Istria,  obsti- 
nate defenders  of  the  three  chapters  condemned  at  the  fifth 
general  council  ;  and  although  this  schism  was  founded 
upon  a  sort  of  insurrection  of  Latin  or  Italian  feeling 
against  the  intemperate  interference  of  the  Eastern  emperors 
on  theological  questions,  Gregory  had  specially  to  contend 
with  the  artifices  used  by  Byzantine  agents  to  keep  up  that 
division. 

The  services  which  he  rendered  to  the  Liturgy  are  well 
known.  In  that  particular,  no  pope  has  equalled  him. 
Completing  and  putting  in  order  the  work  of  his  predeces- 
sors, he  gave  its  definitive  form  to  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the 
mass,  and  the  worship  of  the  Roman  Church,  in  that  cele- 
brated Sacramentary  which,  retouched  and  added  to  during 
following  ages,  remains  the  most  august  monument  of  litur- 
gical science.  It  may  also  be  said  that  he  created,  and  by 
anticipation  saved.  Christian  art,  by  fixing,  long  before  the 
persecution  of  the  iconoclasts  made  that  the  duty  of  the 
Church,  the  true  doctrine  respecting  the  worship  of  images, 

catholicam  non  sinamus." — Epist.,v.  15.  "  Schismaticos  ad  recipiendam 
satisfactionem  venire  invitabat,  quibus  etiam,  si  nusquam  ad  unitatem 
Ecclesise  redire  voluissent,  nullam  se  facturum  violentiain  promittebat." — 
Joan.  Diac,  v.  37  ;  Epist.,  iv.  49.  Let  us  observe  also  his  extreme  gentle- 
ness towards  certain  Christians  of  the  island  of  Corsica  who  had  relapsed 
into  paganism. — Epist.,  viii.  i. 
1  Epist.,  v.  5. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  5  5 

in  that  fine  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Marseilles,  in  which  he 
reproves  him  for  having,  in  the  excess  of  his  zeal  against 
idolatry,  broken  the  statues  of  the  saints,  and  reminds  him 
that  through  all  antiquity  the  history  of  the  saints  has  been 
represented  in  pictures;  that  painting  is  to  the  ignorant 
what  writing  is  to  those  who  can  read,  and  that  images  are 
principally  useful  to  the  poor.^ 

But  his  name  is  specially  associated,  in  the  history  of 
Catholic  worship,  with  that  branch  of  religious  art  which  is 
identified  with  worship  itself,  and  which  is  of  the  utmost 
moment  to  the  piety  as  to  the  innocent  joy  of  the  Christian 
people.^ 

The  name  of  the  Gregorian  Chant  reminds  us  of  his 
solicitude  for  collecting  the  ancient  melodies  of  the  Church, 
in  order  to  subject  them  to  the  rules  of  harmony,  and 
to  arrange  them  according  to  the  requirements  of  divine 
worship.  He  had  the  glory  of  giving  to  ecclesiastical  music 
that  sweet  and  solemn,  and,  at  the  same  time,  popular 
and  durable  character,  which  has  descended  through  ages, 
and  to  which  we  must  always  return  after  the  most  pro- 
longed aberrations  of  frivolity  and  innovation.  He  made 
out  himself,  in  his  Antiphonary,  the  collection  of  ancient 
and  new  chants  ;  he  composed  the  texts  and  music  of  several 
hymns  which  are  still  used  by  the  Church ;  he  established 
at  Rome  the  celebrated  school  of  religious  music,  to  which 
Gaul,  Germany,  England,  all  the  Christian  nations,  came  in 
turn,  trying  with  more  or  less  success  to  assimilate  their 
voices  to  the   purity  of  Italian  modulations.^     A  pleasant 

1  Epist.,  xi.  13. 

^  In  several  churches,  and  during  several  centuries,  a  prose,  in  honour 
of  St.  Gregory,  was  sung  before  the  introit  of  the  first  Sunday  of  Advent, 
in  which  occur  the  following  verses  : — 

"  Tradidit  hie  cantum  populis  normamque  canendi, 
Quod  Domino  laudes  referant  noctuque  dieque." 

— Geebeet,  De  Cant,  et  Mus.  Sacrii,  t.  i.  lib.  2,  ap.  Lau.  245. 

^  All  musical  historians  have  quoted  the  grotesque  description  which  the 
Italian  biographer  of  St.  Gregory  gives  of  the  efforts  of  the  Germans  and 


$6  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

legend,  much  esteemed  in  the  middle  ages,  shows  the  great 
effect  which  the  services  of  Gregory  had  produced  on  all 
nations.  According  to  this  tale,  it  was  in  considering  the 
fascination  exercised  by  profane  music,  that  he  was  led  to 
inquire  whether  he  could  not,  like  David,  consecrate  music 
to  the  service  of  God.  And  as  he  dreamt  of  this  subject 
one  night,  he  had  a  vision  in  which  the  Church  appeared  to 
him  under  the  form  of  a  muse,  magnificently  adorned,  who, 
while  she  wrote  her  songs,  gathered  all  her  children  under 
the  folds  of  her  mantle ;  and  upon  this  mantle  was  written 
the  whole  art  of  music,  with  all  the  forms  of  its  tones,  notes, 
and  neumes,  and  various  measures  and  symphonies.  The 
pope  prayed  God  to  give  him  the  power  of  recollecting  all 
that  he  saw ;  and  after  he  awoke,  a  dove  appeared,  who 
dictated  to  him  the  musical  compositions  with  which  he  has 
enriched  the  Church.^ 

A  more  authentic  memorial  is  that  of  the  little  chamber 
which  he  occupied  in  the  school  of  music,  which  he  had 
established  near  the  Lateran,  and  where,  three  centuries 
after  his  death,  the  bed  upon  which  he  reclined  while  singing 
was  still  to  be  seen,  and  the  whip  with  which  he  corrected 
the  children,  whose  musical  education  he  thus  watched  over.^ 

Must  we  now  condescend  to  refute,  after  the  example 
of  many  other  writers,  the  calumnious  accusations  brought 
against  Gregory  by  blind   enemies,  and  sometimes  by  im- 

French  of  the  ninth  century,  to  harmonise  the  songs  of  the  Gregorian 
school :  "  Alpina  siquidem  corpora  vocum  suarum  tonitruis  altisone  perre- 
pentia,  susceptEe  modulationis  dulcedinem,  proprie  non  resultant :  quia 
bibuli  gutturis  barbara  levitas,  dum  in  flexionibus  et  repercussionibus 
mitem  nititur  edere  cantilenam,  naturali  quodam  fragore,  quasi  plaustra 
per  gradus  confuse  sonantia  rigidas  voces  jactat." — Jo  AN.  DlAC,  ii.  7. 

^  "Vidit  sanctam  Ecclesiam  ornatam  et  compositam  quae  quasi  musa 
cantum  suum  componit  .  .  .  quasi  gallina  pullos  .  .  .  et  quasi  sub  uno 
dragmas  tegmine  tabellulae,  ubi  scripta  erat  ars  musica.  nomina  tonorum 
et  neumatum  numeri." — Jo  ANN.  Presbyt.,  Be  Musica  quomodo  per  B. 
Gregnrum  perinventa,  lib.  iii.,  ap.  Gbrbeet,  op.  cit.,  lib.  ii.  par.  ii.  c.  i. 

^  "  Ubi  usque  hodie  lectus  ejus  in  quo  recubans  modulabatur,  et  flagellum 
ipsius  .  .  .  cum  authentico  antiphonario  reservatur." — Joan.  Diac,  I.  c. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  57 

prudent  admirers,  on  the  subject  of  his  supposed  contempt 
for  literature  and  science  ?  He  is  accused  of  having  de- 
stroyed the  ancient  monuments  of  Rome,  burnt  the  Palatine 
library,  destroyed  the  writings  of  Cicero  and  Titus  Livius, 
expelled  the  mathematicians  from  Rome,  and  reprimanded 
Bishop  Didier  of  Vienne  for  teaching  grammar  to  children. 
None  of  these  imputations,  except  the  last,  is  founded  upon 
any  authority  earlier  than  the  twelfth  century.-^  The  most 
authentic  evidence,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  him  to  us  as 
educated  in  the  schools,  as  nourished  by  the  wise  discipline 
of  ancient  Rome,  and  surrounded  by  the  most  learned  priests 
and  monks  of  his  time,  making  the  seven  liberal  arts,  as 
his  biographer  says,  noble  pillars  of  the  portico  of  the 
apostolical  chair. ^ 

His  contemporary,  Gregory  of  Tours,  who  visited  him  in 
Rome,  says  of  him,  that  he  was  unequalled  for  grammar, 
dialectics,  and  rhetoric.^  He  had,  doubtless,  made  many 
efforts  to  root  out  paganism,  which  perpetuated  itself  in 
the  literary  tastes  and  popular  habits  of  that  Italy,  where 
a  short  time  before  St.  Benedict  had  found  a  temple  of 
Apollo  upon  the  summit  of  Monte  Cassino.  He  disapproved 
of  bestowing  exclusive  attention  upon  mythological  subjects, 
but  never  either  wrote  or  commanded  anything  against  the 
study  of  humane  or  classical  literature.  He  has,  on  the 
contrary,  proved  at  length  that  this  study  was  a  useful 
preparation  and  indispensable  help  to  the  understanding 
of  sacred  literature.  He  regarded  the  disgust  of  certain 
Christians  for  literary  studies  as  a  temptation  of  the  devil, 
and  added  :   "  The  devils  know  well  that  the  knowledge  of 

1  The  first  author  who  has  mentioned  this,  and  with  praise,  is  John  of 
Salisbury,  who  died  in  1183. 

"  "  Septemplicibus  artibus  veluti  columnis  noblissimorum  totidem  lapi- 
dum  apostolicse  sedis  atrium  fulciebat."— JoAN.  DiAC,  ii.  13.  Compare 
ibid.,  c.  14. 

3  "Litteris  grammaticis  dialecticisque  ac  rhetoricis  ita  erat  institutus 
nt  nulli  in  urbe  ipsa  putaretur  esse  secundus." — Gbkg.  Tueon.,  Hist. 
Franc,  x.  i. 


58  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

profane  literature  helps  us  to  understand  sacred  literature. 
In  dissuading  us  from  this  study,  they  act  as  the  Philis- 
tines did,  when  they  interdicted  the  Israelites  from  making 
swords  or  lances,  and  obliged  that  nation  to  come  to  them 
for  the  sharpening  of  their  axes  and  ploughshares."  ^ 

He  reproved  the  Bishop  of  Vienne  only  for  devoting 
himself  to  reading  and  teaching  the  profane  poets,  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  dignity  of  his  charge,  and  represented  to 
him  that  the  praises  of  Jupiter  did  not  come  fitly  from  the 
same  lips  which  uttered  those  of  Jesus  Christ.^  It  is  by  an 
exaggeration  of  humility  that,  in  the  dedication  of  his  book 
upon  Job,  he  shows  a  scorn  of  grammar  and  barbarity  of 
language  which  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  his  writings. 
He  certainly  did  not  write  the  Latin  of  Cicero  or  even  of 
Tacitus,  but  he  contributed  as  much  as  St.  Augustine  to 
form  the  new  Latin,  the  Christian  Latin,  destined  to  be- 
come the  language  of  the  pulpit  and  the  school,  and  from 
which  all  our  modern  languages  have  proceeded.^ 

It  cannot  be  expected  that  we  should  examine,  even  pass- 
ingly, the  writings  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great.  They  largely 
contributed  to  procure  him  this  surname  ;  which  implies  that 
they  are  equal  to  his  glory,  and  have  largely  contributed  to 
the  happy  influence  of  his  genius  upon  the  destinies  of  the 
Church. 

In  an  age  when  everything  seemed  giving  way,  and  in 
which  it  was  necessary  to  struggle,  not  only  against  the 
quibbles  of  heresy,  but  especially  against  exhausted  courage, 
the  despair  of  the  vanquished,  and  the  savage  pride  of  the 

1  "Ad  hoc  tantum  liberales  artes  discendfe  sunt  ut  per  instructionem 
illarum  divina  eloquentia  subtilius  intelligatur.  ...  A  nonnuUorum  cordi- 
bns  discendi  desiderium  maligni  spiritus  tollunt,  ut  et  saecularia  nesciant 
et  ad  sublimitatem  spiritualium  non  pertingant.  Aperte  quidem  dsemones 
sciunt  quia,  dum  seecularibus  litteris  instruimur,  in  spiritualibus  adjuva- 
mur.  .  .  .  Cum  nos  ea  discere  dissuadent,  quid  aliud  quam  ne  lanceam  ut 
gladium  faciamus  prsecavent  ? " — Liv.  v.  in  Primum  Regum,  c.  xxx.  §  30. 

-  "  Quia  in  uno  se  ore  cum  Jo  vis  laudibus  laudes  Christi  non  capiunt." 
— Epi'-t,  xi.  54. 

3  OzANAM,  fragment  already  quoted. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  59 

conquerors,  he  concerns  himself  less  with  the  necessities  of 
the  intellect  than  with  the  purification  and  elevation  of  the 
human  will.  Many  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  have 
surpassed  him  in  style  and  eloquence ;  his  style  is  too  re- 
dundant, too  evidently  marked  by  the  rhetorical  habits  of  a 
declining  age ;  but  no  man  ever  understood  the  human  soul 
better,  analysed  more  closely  its  miseries  and  necessities,  or 
indicated  with  greater  clearness  and  energy  the  remedy  for 
these  evils.  No  one  has  spoken  or  written  with  an  austerity 
greater  or  better  acknowledged  by  posterity  ;  no  one  has  so 
completely  set  forth  the  constitution  and  doctrine  of  the 
Church.  We  have  already  spoken  of  his  Sacramentary, 
which  determined  the  chants,  the  language  and  the  form 
of  the  liturgy,  and  also  of  his  Dialogues,  which  have  been 
the  model  of  the  hagiography  of  the  middle  ages.  Let  us 
further  refer  to  his  Pastoral,  in  which  he  has  collected  the 
rules  which  should  regulate  the  vocation,  life,  and  doctrine 
of  pastors,  and  where  he  mingles  his  instructions  with 
touching  and  noble  reflections  upon  his  own  infirmity.  It 
has  been  said  with  justice  that  this  book  gave  form  and  life 
to  the  entire  hierarchical  body,  and  made  the  bishops  who 
have  made  modern  nations.^  Then  came  his  admirable 
works  upon  Holy  Scripture  ;  and  above  all,  the  thirty-five 
books  of  Moralia,  or  commentaries  on  the  Book  of  Job, 
begun  at  Constantinople  before  his  election,  and  continued 
during  his  pontificate,  which  popularised  the  secrets  of 
asceticism  by  developing  the  loftiest  traditions  of  Biblical 
interpretation,  and  were  worthy  of  becoming,  through  all 
the  middle  ages,  the  text-book  of  moral  theology.  In  our 
own  days,  the  portion  of  his  works  which  is  read  with 
greatest  interest  are  his  thirteen  volumes  of  Epistles,  the 
collection  of  that  immense  correspondence  by  which  he  con- 
ducted, day  by  day,  and  according  to  the  necessities  of  the 
time,  the  usual  legislation  of  the  Church,  in  which  his  un- 
wearied eye  visited  from  Ireland  to  Caucasus  the  furthest 
1  OzANAM,  unpublished  fragment. 


6o  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

corners  of  the  Christian  world,  and  in  which  he  has  traced 
at  the  same  time  a  living  picture  of  his  own  age,  and  the 
annals  of  that  great  government  of  souls,  and  even  of 
temporal  interests,  which  he  exercised  with  so  much  justice, 
prudence,  activity,  wisdom,  and  compassion. 

He  was,  besides,  an  eloquent  and  unwearied  preacher, 
and  esteemed  it  of  the  highest  importance  that  this  duty- 
should  be  fulfilled  by  other  bishops  as  it  was  by  himself.^ 
He  devoted  himself  to  this  without  intermission,  even  in 
the  most  serious  difficulties  of  his  charge.  He  was  prone 
to  deride  those  sacred  orators  who  sometimes  did  not  speak 
enough,  and  sometimes  spoke  too  much  ;  wordy  in  superfluous 
matters,  mute  in  things  necessary.^  His  twenty-two  homilies 
on  Ezekiel  were  delivered  by  him  before  the  people,  as  has 
been  formerly  mentioned,  during  the  siege  of  Rome  by  the 
Lombards.  Of  his  forty  homilies  upon  the  Gospel,  twenty 
were  preached  by  himself,  and  the  other  twenty  were  read 
to  the  people  by  a  notary,  in  consequence  of  the  personal 
sufferings  which  prevented  him  from  ascending  the  pulpit. 

A  theologian,  a  philosopher,  and  an  orator,  he  is  worthy 
of  taking  his  place  by  that  triple  title,  in  the  veneration 
of  Christendom,  beside  Augustine,  Ambrose,  and  Jerome,  to 
be  ranked  with  them  among  the  four  great  doctors  of  the 
Western  Church,  and  to  take  his  place  thus  in  the  first 
rank  of  that  order  of  which  he  himself  has  said  :  "In 
Ecclesia  ordo  doctorum  quasi  rex  prsesidet,  quem  fidelium 
suorum  turba  circumstat."  ^ 

He  would  never  have  judged  himself  worthy  of  such  an 
honour,  for  he  despised  his  own  works.  He  composed  his 
Morals  only  at  the  entreaty  of  his  friend  St,  Leander,  and 
before  sending  him  the  work  which  was  dedicated  to  him, 
desired  to  submit  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  various  monas- 
teries in  Eome.      He  did  not  suppose  it  adapted  to  become 

1  Regula  Pastoralis,  part  iii.  c.  25. 

2  "Verbosus  in  superfluis,  mutus  in  necessariis." 
'  Moral.,  lib,  xx,  c,  $, 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  6 1 

a  means  of  instruction  to  the  Christian  world,  and  was  dis- 
tressed that,  in  his  lifetime,  a  bishop  had  read  it  in  public. 
"  So  long  as  I  live,  I  desire,  if  I  succeed  in  saying  some- 
thing that  is  good,  that  men  should  not  know  of  it."  ^  We 
recognise  the  humility  of  the  pontiff  in  the  tale  which  informs 
us  how,  seeing  a  Persian  abbot  prostrate  himself  at  his  feet, 
he  himself  knelt  before  the  Oriental  to  prevent  such  a 
homage.^ 

His  humility  as  a  monk  should  be  also  acknowledged 
here ;  which  reminds  us  that  it  is  our  special  business  to 
show  the  monk  in  the  great  pope,  of  whom  we  have,  per- 
haps, spoken  at  too  great  length.  In  his  public  life,  in  his 
immortal  reign,  and  especially  in  his  writings,  everything 
bears  the  ineffaceable  impression  of  his  monastic  education 
and  spirit.  It  only  remains  for  us  to  tell  what  he  did  to 
regulate  and  increase  the  progress  of  the  order  of  which  he 
was,  after  St.  Benedict,  the  principal  ornament,  the  second 
legislator,  and,  according  to  some,  the  true  founder  in  the 
West. 

Of  the  services  rendered  to  his  order  by  the  first  monk 
who  was  raised  to  the  papacy,  that  biography  of  the  holy 
patriarch  which  is  contained  in  the  second  book  of  the 
Dialogues,  and  which  no  one  since  then  has  ever  undertaken 
to  do  over  again,  must  hold  the  highest  place.  But  he  did 
still  more  in  completing  and  sanctioning  the  rule  of  Bene- 
dict by  the  supreme  authority  of  the  apostolical  see.  In 
the  Council  of  Rome  in  595,  he  solemnly  approved  and 
confirmed  this  rule.^     In   the    Council  of  60 1,  he  gave  a 

1  "  Necque  enim  volo,  dum  in  hac  carne  sum,  si  qua  dixisse  me  contigit, 
ea  facile  hominibus  innotesci." — Epist.,  xii.  24. 

-  SOPHEONIUS,  Pratum  Spirituale,  ap.  Yepes,  t.  i.  p.  424. 

^  Baronius,  Annal.,  ad  an.  595,  ex  NS.  Sublacensi.  The  authenticity 
of  this  charter  has  been  disputed,  but  it  is  evident  that  Gregory  sanctioned 
the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  either  then,  or  afterwards,  by  Canon  VII.  of  the 
Second  Council  of  Douzy,  near  Sedan,  in  874,  which  says  :  "Eadem  regula 
S.  Spiritu  promulgata  et  laudis  auctoritate  B.  papje  Gregorii  inter  canonicas 
scripturas  et  catholicorum  doctorum  scripta  teneri  decreta  est." 


62  ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT 

constitution  destined  to  establish  and  guarantee  the  freedom 
of  the  monks.-^  This  decree  commences  thus  :  "  The  charge 
which  we  formerly  filled  as  head  of  a  monastery,  has  taught 
us  how  necessary  it  is  to  provide  for  the  tranquillity  and 
security  of  the  monks ;  and  as  we  know  that  most  of  them 
have  had  to  suffer  much  oppression  and  injustice  at  the 
hands  of  the  bishops,  it  concerns  our  fraternal  feeling  to 
provide  for  their  future  repose."  Then,  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  St.  Peter,  he  interdicts  bishops  as  well 
as  secular  persons  from  diminishing  the  property,  re- 
venues, or  titles  of  monasteries.  He  ordains  that  disputes 
relative  to  the  land  claimed  in  the  name  of  episcopal 
churches  should  be  decided  by  the  abbots  or  other  arbi- 
trators fearing  God.  He  arranges  that  after  the  death  of 
every  abbot,  his  successor  should  be  chosen  by  the  free  and 
unanimous  consent  of  the  community,  and  drawn  from  its 
own  bosom  ;  that  once  elected  and  ordained  without  fraud 
or  bribery,  the  abbot  could  only  be  deprived  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  monastery  for  crimes  provided  for  by  the  canons. 
No  monk  could  be  taken  from  his  monastery  to  be  employed 
in  the  duties  of  the  secular  clergy.  Monks  ordained  priests 
by  the  consent  of  the  abbot  must  leave  the  monastery.  The 
bishops  are  further  forbidden  to  proceed  with  inventories  of 
monastic  goods  after  the  death  of  the  abbot,  to  celebrate 
public  masses  in  the  churches  of  the  monks,  drawing  the 
crowd  and  women  there,  as  also  from  erecting  their  own 
pulpit,  or  exercising  the  slightest  authority  there,  except  at 
the  desire  of  the   abbot.^      We  desire,  said  the  pope  in  con- 

1  "Decretum  Constituti  nomine  appellari  solitum.  .  .  .  Decretum 
Gregorii  papse  de  libeitate  monachorum." — Not.  ad.  ConciL,  ed.  Colctti, 
t.  vi.  p.  1343. 

2  "  Quam  sit  necessarium  monachorum  quieti  prospicere  .  .  .  anteactum 
nos  oificium  quod  in  regimine  coenobii  exhibuimus  informat,  et  quia  in 
plerisque  monasteriis  multa  a  prsesulibus  prsejudicia  et  gravamina  mona- 
chos  pertulisse  cognovimus,  oportet  ut  nostrse  fraternitatis  provisio  de 
futura  eorum  quiete  salubri  disponat  ordinatione.  .  .  .  Ut  nullus  episco- 
porum  seu  saecularium  ultra  prsesumat  .  .  .  non  extraneus  eligatur,  nisi 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  63 

eluding  the  proclamation  of  his  decree,  that  this  passage 
written  by  us  should  be  always  and  inviolably  observed  by 
the  bishops,  in  order  that  the  monks  may  not  be  turned 
aside  from  divine  service  by  any  trouble  or  vexation  on  the 
part  of  ecclesiastics  or  secular  persons.  All  the  bishops 
present  at  the  council  answered :  "  We  rejoice  in  the  freedom 
of  the  monks,  and  confirm  all  that  your  holiness  ordains."  ^ 
And  all  signed,  to  the  number  of  twenty,  with  fourteen 
cardinal  priests,  and  four  deacons  of  the  Eoman  Church. 

Amid  the  disorders  and  conflicts  which  agitated  the 
Church  and  wasted  Christendom,  the  work  of  St.  Benedict 
was  thus  invested  with  the  highest  sanction  existing  upon 
earth.  The  free  choice  of  its  chiefs,  and  the  inviolability 
of  its  property,  the  two  fundamental  principles  of  every 
independent  and  regular  society,  were  guaranteed  to  tlie 
monastic  order  by  the  most  solemn  act,  emanating  from  a 
pope  who  remembered,  and  considered  himself  honoured  in 
remembering,  that  he  had  been  a  monk. 

Along  with  this  general  liberty  assured  to  the  entire 
order,  Gregory  had  conceded  analogous  and  special  privi- 
leges to  several  monasteries.  He  may  be  regarded  as  the 
principal  author  of  what  has  since  been  called  exemptions? 
In  releasing  the  great  communities  of  Gaul  and  Italy  in 
various  essential  points  from  episcopal  jurisdiction,  he  evi- 

de  eadem  congregatione,  quern  sibi  propria  voluntate  concors  fratrum 
societas  elegerit.  .  .  .  Hanc  scriptorum  nostrorum  paginam  omni  f  uturo 
tempore  ab  episcopis  firmam  statuimus  illibatamque  servari." — ConcU.,  I.  c. 

^  "Libertati  monachorum  congaudemus,  et  quai  nunc  de  his  statuit 
Beatitude  Vestra  firmamus." — Ibid. 

"  Several  examples  of  these  are  instanced  prior  to  his  pontificate,  and 
as  far  back  as  the  first  years  of  the  sixth  century,  but  they  are  not  of  a 
sufficiently  authentic  character.  Some  authors,  however,  among  others 
Thomassin  (Vetus  et  Nova  Disciplina,  pars  i.  lib.  iii.  c.  30),  have  main- 
tained that,  by  his  concessions,  Gregory  did  not  lessen  the  spiritual 
jurisdiction  of  the  bishops  over  the  communities.  This  appears  difficult 
to  prove  in  presence  of  the  text,  which  is  of  a  very  different  tenor.  The 
first  exemption  given  to  a  monastery  in  Gaul  was  by  St.  Gregory  to  a  ■ 
community  of  women  founded  in  honour  of  John  Cassianus,  at  Marseilles. 
—Epist.,  vii.  12. 


64  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

dently  had  in  view  only  to  fortify  them  in  spiritual  life, 
and  to  form  so  many  centres  of  energetic  resistance  against 
the  disorders  which  the  different  invasions  and  struggles  of 
diverse  races  among  themselves  had  made  frequent  in  the 
ranks  of  the  secular  clergy.  He  said  expressly  to  a  com- 
munity at  Rimini,  in  conferring  upon  it  the  exemption  it 
solicited :  "  You  must  now  all  the  more  be  occupied  with 
the  work  of  God,  all  the  more  assiduous  in  prayer,  for  other- 
wise you  should  appear  not  to  have  sought  greater  security 
for  your  orisons,  but  only,  which  God  forbid  !  to  secure  your 
laxness  from  episcopal  severity."  ^ 

■*  It  was  also  with  this  aim  that  he  endeavoured  to  enforce 
a  rigorous  distinction  between  the  ecclesiastical  condition 
and  monastic  life,  a  distinction  which  completely  disap- 
peared in  after  times.  He  would  not  suffer  either  a  priest 
or  a  deacon  to  become  an  abbot,  or  even  a  mere  monk, 
unless  he  gave  up  his  clerical  functions ;  for,  said  he, 
"  there  are  some  who,  feigning  to  live  as  monks,  are  am- 
bitious of  being  placed  at  the  head  of  monasteries,  which 
they  destroy  by  their  manner  of  life." "  He  was  very  will- 
ing that  there  should  be  monks  in  the  priesthood  to  celebrate 
mass  in  the  communities  ;  ^  above  all,  he  had  no  intention 
of  interdicting  the  elevation  of  monks  to  sacerdotal  or  epis- 
copal dignity,  of  which  there  were  several  instances  under 
his  pontificate.  But  every  monk  called  to  an  ecclesiastical 
office  or  benefice  was  to  leave  his  monastery,  never  to  re- 
turn.^ They  had  to  choose  between  the  clerical  office  and 
monastic  life ;    for,    according  to    Gregory,    each   of  these 

^  Epist.,  ii.  42,  ad  Luminosum  abbatem. 

2  "  Dum  hi  fingunt  se  religiose  vivere,  monasteriis  pr^poni  appetunt, 
et  per  eorum  vitam  monasteria  destruuntur." — Epist.,  v.  i. 

2  Epist.,  vi.  42. 

*  Concil.  de  601,  p.  1343,  ex.  Cod.  Flaviniac.  Compare  Epist.,  vii.  43.  He 
would  not  consent  that  Urbicus,  abbot  of  St.  Hermes  and  general  superior 
of  the  Sicilian  monasteries,  should  be  elected  Archbishop  of  Palermo, 
"  ne  eum  ad  altiora  producenda,  minorem  se  ipso  fieri  missum  in  fluctibus 
compellerat." 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  65 

vocations  is  so  great  in  itself,  that  no  man  can  acquit  him- 
self in  it  worthily  ;  and  far  from  being  able  to  exercise  them 
together,  they  mutually  injure  each  other.^  The  experience 
of  Catholic  ages  has  corrected  upon  that  point  the  pious 
foresight  of  Gregory  :  and  even  in  his  own  lifetime  the  new 
sees  established  in  England  by  his  disciples  were  filled  only 
by  monks. 

If  the  experience  of  monastic  life  which  he  had  acquired 
as  an  abbot  helped  him  to  use  his  authority  as  pope  to  pro- 
mote the  peace  and  freedom  of  the  monks — if  he  every- 
where displayed  a  constant  and  efficient  solicitude  for  the 
consolidation  of  the  order — he  always  insisted  at  the  same 
time  upon  the  maintenance  and  establishment  of  the  strictest 
discipline.  At  the  time  of  his  advent  to  the  Holy  See  that 
discipline  was  already  much  relaxed.  Monks  wandered  here 
and  there,  some  expelled  from  their  asylums  by  the  Lom- 
bards, some  voluntary  deserters  from  a  retirement  which 
they  had  left  in  consequence  of  the  too  severe  authority  of 
one  abbot,  or  the  contagious  laxness  of  another.  The  spirit 
of  the  world,  the  desire  of  property,  the  habit  of  rebellion 
or  license,  penetrated  into  the  cloisters  which  still  remained 
standing  and  inhabited.  Gregory  devoted  himself  to  the 
work  of  monastic  reform,  and  succeeded  in  it.  He  invited 
the  assistance  sometimes  of  the  abbots  themselves,  some- 
times of  the  bishops,  and  still  more  frequently  of  the  defen- 
sor's^ procurators  or  syndics  of  the  Eoman  Church,  whom 
he  maintained  in  every  province.  He  deposed  without  pity 
all  the  abbots  who  lived  an  irregular  life.^     He  forbade  the 

1  "  Satis  enim  incongruum  est,  ut  cum  unum  ex  his  pro  sui  magnitudine 
diligenter  quis  non  possit  explere,  ad  utrumque  judicetur  idoneus  ;  sicque 
invicem  et  ecclesiasticus  ordo  vitfB  monachicas  et  ecclesiasticis  utilitatibus 
regula  monachatus  impediat."— ^^is«.,  iv.  21.  This  did  not  prevent  many 
writers  of  his  time  from  calling  the  monks  indiscriminately  monachi  or 
clerici:  see  especially  Gregory  op  Tours,  Be  Gloria  Mart.,  lib.  i.  c  75. 
Compare  Mabillon,  Prasf.  in  sac.  Bened.  See  also,  in  book  iv.,  a  reference 
to  cap.  52  of  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  upon  the  originally  lax  character  of 
the  monastic  order. 

2  Epist.,  iii.  23,  V.  3,  6. 

VOL.  II.  E 


66  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

bishops  to  afford  shelter  to  rebellious  or  vagabond  monks, 
or  those  who  were  excommunicated  by  their  abbots/  He 
would  not  have  the  Religious  wander  over  the  country  or 
from  one  house  to  another.^  To  deprive  both  abbots  and 
monks  of  all  pretext  for  leaving  their  monastery,  he  ordained 
that  each  should  have  a  secular  and  paid  procurator.  He 
watched  especially  over  the  strict  observance  of  monastic 
continence,  to  such  an  extent  that  monasteries  of  the  two 
sexes  were  withdrawn  to  a  distance  from  each  other,  and 
women  were  rigorously  forbidden  to  enter,  upon  any  pre- 
text whatever,  into  communities  of  men.  In  the  islands 
of  the  Italian  coast,  already  peopled  with  monks,^  and  to 
which  the  inhabitants  of  Campania  fleeing  from  the  Bar- 
barians had  found  a  refuge,  he  commanded  the  rector  of  the 
pontifical  patrimony  to  remove  all  the  women. 

He  was  specially  desirous  to  seek  out  and  shut  up  those 
monks  who  had  left  their  communities  in  order  to  marry, 
and  against  whom  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  had  pronounced 
excommunication.'*  But  even  in  applying  these  austere  laws, 
the  tender  charity  and  amiable  cordiality  which  distinguished 
his  character  always  reappeared.  A  patrician  of  Syracuse, 
named  Venantius,  a  great  friend  of  Gregory,  became  a  monk 
like  him  ;  but  was  afterwards  disgusted  with  monastic  life, 
and  married.  When  Gregory  became  pope,  one  of  his  first 
cares  was  to  recall  himself  to  the  recollection  of  his  old 
friend,  in  order  to  enlighten  him  upon  the  seriousness  of  his 
condition.  "  Many  fools  believed,"  he  wrote  to  him,  "  that 
when  I  became  a  bishop  I  should  cease  to  see  you  or  address 

1  Hpist.,  vii.  35.  An  African  abbot,  called  Cum  quo  Deus,  had  com- 
plained to  him  that  his  monks  fled  when  he  enforced  a  strict  observance 
of  the  rule. 

2  Epist.,  i.  41,  42,  &c. 

*  Especially  in  the  islands  of  Monte  Christo  and  Gorgone.  The  life  in 
these  island  monasteries  was  so  difficult  that  Gregory  forbade  the  recep- 
tion of  young  people  under  eighteen,  and  ordered  that  all  who  were  below 
that  age  should  be  sent  back  to  Rome. 

^  Epist,,  i.  42. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  ^y 

you  by  letter  :  but  it  shall  not  be  so,  for  my  charge  itself 
forbids  me  to  be  silent.  ...  I  will  speak  to  you  whether 
it  pleases  you  or  not,  .  .  .  because  I  desire  above  all  either 
to  save  you,  or  at  least  not  to  be  responsible  for  your  loss. 
You  know  what  habit  you  have  worn,  and  into  what  an 
abyss  you  have  fallen.  ...  If  Ananias  merited  the  death 
you  know  of,  for  having  stolen  from  God  the  pieces  of  money 
which  he  had  offered  to  Him,  think  what  you  should  merit 
who  have  stolen  away  from  God  not  money,  but  yourself, 
after  having  dedicated  yourself  to  Him  under  the  monastic 
habit.  I  know  well  that  as  soon  as  my  letter  arrives,  you 
will  assemble  your  friends  and  literary  clients,  and  consult 
upon  this  vital  question  those  who  have  abetted  your  death. 
These  people,  like  those  who  led  you  to  crime,  tell  you  only 
what  will  please  you,  because  they  love  not  yourself  but 
what  you  have.  If  you  need  a  counsellor  take  me,  I  be- 
seech you.  No  one  could  be  more  faithful,  for  it  is  you 
I  love,  and  not  your  fortune.  May  Almighty  God  teach 
your  heart  to  understand  how  much  my  heart  loves  and 
embraces  you  in  everything  that  does  not  offend  divine 
grace.  And  if  you  believe  that  I  love  you,  come  to  the 
threshold  of  the  apostles,  and  make  use  of  me  as  your 
adviser.  If  you  distrust  the  excess  of  my  zeal,  I  offer 
you  the  advice  of  the  whole  Church,  and  I  will  willingly 
subscribe  to  whatever  they  decide  by  common  accord."  -^ 

Venantius  was  deaf  to  the  voice  of  the  pontiff.  Gregory 
notwithstanding  remained  his  friend ;  he  continued  to  write 
to  him  and  also  to  his  wife.^  Ten  years  later,  when  they 
were  both  old  and  sick,  he  returned  to  the  affectionate  elo- 
quence of  his  first  exhortations.     He  entreated  the  Bishop  of 

^  "  Multi  hominum  stulti  ,  .  .  putavernnt  .  .  .  te  alloqui  et  per  epistolas 
frequentare  recusarem.  ...  In  quo  habitu  fueris  recolis  ...  ad  quid  sis 
delapsus  agnoscis.  .  .  .  Scio  quia  cum  epistola  mea  suscipitur,  protinus 
amici  conveniunt,  literati  clientes  vocantur.  .  .  .  Consiliarium,  rogo,  me 
suscipe.  .  .  .  Quidquid  omnibus  fieri  salubriter  placet,  ego  in  nullo  contra- 
dico." — Epist,  i.  34. 

2  Ihid.,  ix.  123. 


68  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

Syracuse  to  neglect  no  means  of  leading  Yenantius,  now  a 
widower,  to  take  again,  if  only  on  bis  deathbed,  the  monastic 
habit ;  and  after  the  death  of  his  friend  he  took  under  his 
special  protection  the  two  daughters  whom  he  had  left  ex- 
posed to  all  kinds  of  dangers.  The  pope  interested  himself 
with  his  usual  zeal  in  their  fate  and  fortune ;  he  wrote  to 
them  himself,  engaged  them  to  come  to  Rome  to  be  near  him, 
and  was  as  a  father  to  these  orphans,  whom  he  always  called 
Ms  dearest  daughters} 

He  took  an  equal  interest  in  the  discipline  and  prosperity 
of  female  convents.^  The  three  sisters  of  his  father  had  been 
nuns,  and  this  domestic  tie  naturally  increased  his  interest 
and  enlightened  his  vigilance  in  respect  to  communities  of 
virgins  consecrated  to  God.  A  decree  of  his  predecessor, 
Leo.  I.,  in  conformity  with  several  ancient  councils,  and 
confirmed  by  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Majorian  in  458,  had 
ordained  that  nuns  should  not  receive  the  veil  and  the  solemn 
benediction  without  a  novitiate  which  lasted  up  to  their 
fortieth  year.'^  Gregory  ordained  that  the  abbesses,  chosen 
by  the  communities,  should  be  at  least  sixty,  and  should 
possess  an  irreproachable  reputation."^     His  paternal  gene- 

^  "Dulcissimaj  filia;."— JFpi'si.,  xi.  35,  36,  78. 

2  EpisL,  iv.  9  ;  V.  6,  24.  There  were  from  the  first  nuns  of  several  kinds  ; 
most  of  them  lived  in  communities,  but  others  were  solitary  recluses,  or, 
indeed,  lived  in  their  families,  wearing  the  veil :  various  errors  resulted 
from  these  last  two  methods,  to  which  the  popes  and  councils  put  an  end. 
In  his  Dialogues  St.  Gregory  speaks  of  several  holy  nuns,  entitling  them 
Ancilla  Christi,  Deo  devota,  confessa  reclusa ;  he  gives  them  also  the  name  of 
monialis,  which  was  afterwards  the  term  generally  used. 

The  three  aunts  of  St.  Gregory  were  nuns  of  some  domestic  order ;  he 
speaks  of  them  thus  :  "  Tres  pater  meus  sorores  habuit,  quse  cunctse  tres 
sacras  virgines  fuerunt  .  .  .  uno  ouines  ardore  conversje,  uno  eodemque 
tempore  sacratas,  sub  districtione  regulari  degentes,  in  domo  propria 
socialem  vitam  ducebant." — Horn.  38,  in  Evang. 

3  These  decrees  only  applied  to  the  benediction  or  solemn  profession, 
and  did  not  prevent  young  girls  from  consecrating  their  virginity  to  God 
from  infancy,  as  has  been  proved  by  a  multitude  of  examples.  This  ques- 
tion has  been  thoroughly  discussed  by  Thomassin,  Vetus  et  Nova  Ecclesice 
Disciplina,  pars.  i.  lib.  3,  c.  58. 

*  Epist,,  iv.  II. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  69 

rosity  provided  for  the  necessities  of  the  nuns  who  had  taken 
refuge  at  Rome  from  the  ruined  monasteries  of  Italy,  to  the 
number  of  three  thousand,  and  who  suffered  much  from  the 
cold  during  the  hard  winter  of  597,  leading  all  the  while  a 
most  edifying  life.  "  Rome  owes  to  their  prayers,  their 
tears,  and  fasts,"  he  wrote  to  the  sister  of  the  Emperor 
Maurice,  "  its  deliverance  from  the  swords  of  the  Lombards."  ^ 

It  has  been  already  seen  with  what  rigour  he  pursued, 
as  abbot,  among  the  Religious,  that  offence  which  monastic 
phraseology  called  peculiarity,  or  the  vice  of  personal  pro- 
perty. As  pope,  he  displayed  the  same  severity.  He  re- 
fused to  confirm  the  election  of  an  abbot  whom  he  knew  to 
be  stained  with  this  vice.  "  I  know  that  he  loves  property," 
he  wrote,  "  which  shows  that  he  has  not  the  heart  of  a  monk. 
...  If  this  love  existed  among  us,  there  would  be  neither 
concord  nor  charity.  What  is  monastic  life,  if  not  contempt 
of  the  world  ?  and  how  can  we  say  that  we  despise  the 
world  if  we  seek  it  again  ?  "  ^  The  monks  were  debarred 
from  making  wills,  as  well  as  from  possessing  property  of 
their  own.  In  a  council  held  at  Rome  in  600,  the  abbot 
Probus,  who  had  succeeded  Gregory  as  superior  of  the 
monastery  of  St.  Andrea,  obtained,  by  special  grace,  the 
power  of  making  his  will  in  favour  of  his  son,  and  that  only 
in  consequence  of  the  pope's  declaration  that,  being  a  mere 
recluse,  he  had  been,  in  spite  of  himself,  made  abbot  of  a 
monastery  in  which  he  was  not  even  a  monk,  without  time 
being  given  him  to  dispose  of  his  possessions  before  entering. 

The  legitimacy  and  sincerity  of  religious  vocations  was 
still  further  the  object  of  Gregory's  special  vigilance.  It  is 
evident  from  his  writings  that  he  had  particularly  studied 
the  conditions  proper  to  enlighten  and  decide  Christians 
upon  their  spiritual  vocation.  In  religious  life  itself,  he 
would  have  none  give  himself  up  to  a  life  of  contemplation 

^  Epist,  vii.  26. 

2  "  Cognovi  quod  peculiaritati  studeat,  quas  res  maxime  testatur  eum  cor 
monachi  non  habere." — Ibid.,  xii.  24. 


70  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

until  he  had  been  long  and  seriously  tried  in  active  life. 
"  In  order,"  lie  said,  "  to  attain  the  citadel  of  contemplation, 
you  must  begin  by  exercising  yourself  in  the  field  of  labour." 
He  insists  at  length  upon  the  dangers  of  contemplative  life 
for  unquiet  and  presumptuous  minds,  who  run  the  risk,  by 
pride,  of  aspiring  to  surpass  the  powers  of  intellect,  and  of 
leading  the  weak  astray,  while  they  wandered  astray  them- 
selves. "Whoever,"  he  adds,  "  would  devote  himself  to  con- 
templation ought  necessarily  to  examine  himself  thoroughly, 
to  ascertain  to  what  point  he  can  love.  For  it  is  love 
which  is  the  lever  of  the  soul.  This  alone  can  raise  it  up, 
and,  snatching  it  from  the  world,  give  it  full  power  of 
wing,  and  make  it  soar  into  the  skies."  ^ 

This  intelligent  study  of  the  moral  and  internal  life  of 
the  Religious  rendered  him  only  more  attentive  to  the 
means  by  which  the  always  increasing  population  of  the 
monasteries  was  kept  up.  He  enjoined  a  married  man, 
who  had  become  a  monk  in  a  Sicilian  convent  without  the 
consent  and  simultaneous  conversion  of  his  wife,  to  return 
to  her,  marking  thus,  in  his  letter,  the  difference  between 
divine  and  human  laws  concerning  the  indissolubility  of 
marriage.^  He  forbade  the  superiors  to  give  the  monks  the 
tonsure — that  is,  to  receive  them  finally  into  the  monastic 
order — before  they  had  proved  their  conversion  by  a  two 
years'  novitiate  :  this  was  a  year  more  than  St.  Benedict 
had  fixed. ^  He  was  especially  desirous  that  this  serious 
novitiate,  during  which  the  lay  dress  was  still  worn,  should 
try  the  disposition  of  the  multitude  of  laymen,  and  above 
all,  of  slaves,  belonging  either  to  the  Church  or  to  secular 
masters,  who  sought  an  asylum  in  the  monasteries,  in  order 
to  change  human  servitude  for  the  service  of  God.  In  the 
preamble  of  the  decree  which  dealt  with  this  matter  in  the 

1  "  Necesse  est  ut  quisquis  ad  contemplationem  studia  properat  se 
metipsum  subtiliter  interroget,  quantum  amat  Machina  quippe  mentis 
est  vis  amoris :  quje  banc  dum  a  mundo  extrahit,  in  alta  sustollit." — 
Moralia,  liv.  vi.  c.  37. 

'  Epist.,  xi.  50.  ^  Jhid.,  x.  24. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  7 1 

Council  at  Rome  in  595,  it  is  said,  "  If  we  allow  this  to  go 
on,  all  the  lands  of  the  Church  will  be  abandoned  ;  and  if 
we  repulse  them  without  examination,  we  take  away  some- 
thing from  God  who  has  given  us  all.  It  is  necessary,  then, 
that  he  who  would  give  himself  to  God  should  first  be  tried 
in  his  secular  dress,  in  order  that,  if  his  conduct  shows  the 
sincerity  of  his  desire,  he  may  be  freed  from  the  servitude 
of  man  to  embrace  a  more  rigorous  service."  ^  Slaves  could 
become  monks,  according  to  a  law  of  Justinian,  without  the 
consent  of  their  masters,  but  had  to  be  enfranchised  by 
payment  of  their  value  :  the  slave  who  had  become  a  monk, 
and  showed  himself  unfaithful  to  his  new  vocation,  ran  the 
risk  of  being  sent  back  to  his  former  master.^ 

In  all  this  vast  correspondence,  by  which  Gregory  in  a 
manner  took  possession  of  the  West  for  the  papacy,  I  know 
not  a  more  touching  letter  than  one  which  he  addressed  to 
the  sub-deacon  of  the  Roman  Church  in  Campania,  on  the 
subject  of  a  young  slave  who  was  desirous  of  becoming  a 
nun.  "I  understand  that  the  defensor  Felix  possesses  a 
young  woman  called  Catella,  who  seeks  with  tears  and 
vehement  desire  to  take  the  veil,  but  whose  master  will  not 

1  "Cum  ad  clericalem  professionem  tarn  ex  ecclesiastica  quam  ex 
sEeculari  militia  quotidie  pocne  innumerabilis  multitude  conflueret,  ne- 
quaquam  eos  ad  ecclesiastici  decoris  ofticium,  sed  ad  capiendum  solum- 
modo  monachicum  propositum  .  .  .  suscipiendos  censebat." — Joan.  DlAC, 
ii.  16.  "  Multos  de  ecclesiastica  familia  seu  saeculari  militia  novimus  ad 
omnipotentis  Dei  servitium  festinare  ut  ab  humana  servitute  liberi  in 
divino  servitio  valeant  familiarius  in  monasteriis  conversari.  .  .  .  Necesse 
est  ut  quisquis  ex  juris  ecclesiastici  vel  sascularis  militiae  servitute  Dei  ad 
servitium  converti  desiderat,  probetur  prius  in  laico  habitu,  et  si  mores 
ejus  ...  in  monasterio,  servire  permittatur  ut  ab  humane  servitio  liber 
recedat  qui  in  divino  amore  districtiorem  subire  appetit  servitutem." — 
Epist.,  iv.  44,  ed.  Coletti,  Apjjtnd.  v.  ed.  Bened.  Mabillon  ( Jnn.  Bened.,  lib. 
viii.  c.  61),  Fleury  (lib.  35,  c.  43),  and  Lau  (p.  236),  are  all  agreed  in  apply- 
ing the  terms  of  this  decree  to  slaves.  Such  grave  authorities  must  be 
respected  ;  yet,  in  recurring  to  the  expressions  of  John  the  Deacon,  which 
we  quote  above,  we  should  be  tempted  to  believe  that  it  did  not  refer 
to  those  who  fled  from  slavery  properly  so  called,  but  only  the  ordinary 
service  of  the  Church  and  State,  or  of  secular  life. 

^  Epist.,  V.  c.  34. 


72  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

permit  her  to  assume  it.  Now,  I  desire  that  you  go  to 
Felix  and  demand  of  him  the  soul  of  this  girl :  you  shall 
pay  him  the  price  he  wants,  and  send  her  here  under  the 
charge  of  competent  persons,  who  will  conduct  her  to  a 
monastery.  And  do  it  speedily,  that  your  delay  may  not 
put  this  soul  in  danger."  ^ 

His  exertions  for  the  propagation  of  the  Benedictine 
order  were  powerful  and  perpetual.  He  devoted  a  portion 
of  the  patrimony  of  the  Church  to  found  new  monasteries 
in  Italy.  He  erected  the  earliest  religious  houses  in  the 
island  of  Corsica.  He  confided  to  the  monks  the  guardian- 
ship and  service  of  several  ancient  churches,  like  that  of  St. 
Pancratius  at  Eome,  and  especially  that  of  St.  Apollinaris 
or  Classe,  near  Kavenna,  a  celebrated  and  sumptuous  basilica, 
built  by  Justinian  at  the  capital  of  the  Byzantine  and 
Ostrogoth  government  in  Italy,  upon  the  site  chosen  by 
Augustus  as  a  port  for  his  fleets  in  the  Adriatic.^  This 
new  monastery,  destined  to  become  one  of  the  principal 
centres  of  monastic  life  in  Italy,  received  from  Gregory  the 
most  extended  privileges,  to  protect  it  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  clergy  of  Ravenna,  who  were  noted  for  their 
readiness  to  invade  the  neighbouring  monasteries.  The 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  Marinian,  although  he  had  himself 
been  a  monk  with  Gregory,  and  was  his  old  friend,  saw 
with  displeasure  that  great  community  exempted  from  his 
full  jurisdiction,  and  this  was  the  occasion  of  one  of  the 
disputes  which  disturbed  their  old  friendship.^ 

These  new  foundations  did  not  make  him  forget  the  old 
homes  of  monastic  fervour.  He  congratulated  the  abbot  of 
Lerins  on  the  satisfactory  account  which  he  had  transmitted 
by  his  legate  Augustine,  of  the  regularity  and  unanimity 

^  "  Volumus  ut  experientia  tua  prsefatum  Felicem  adeat,  atque  puellaj 
ejusdem  animam  sollicite  requirat  .  .  .  pretium  ejusdem  puell^  suae 
domino  praabeat.  .  .  .  Ita  vero  age,  ut  non  per  lentam  actionem  tuam." — 
EpisL,  iii.  40. 

"  FABBRI,  Memor.  di  Ravenna,  pp.  103,  113,  339. 

3  Epist.,  vi.  29. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  73 

which  still  reigned  in  that  famous  isle.  It  is  touching  to 
see  the  apostle  of  England  acting  thus  as  intermediary 
between  the  great  pope  who  had  issued  from  the  new  Bene- 
dictine order,  and  the  most  illustrious  monastery  of  ancient 
Gaul ;  and  we  love  to  learn,  by  the  letter  of  St.  Gregory, 
that  his  paternal  heart  appreciated  the  alms  which  came 
from  Lerins  in  the  shape  of  dishes  and  spoons  sent  by  the 
abbot  for  the  service  of  the  poor  in  Kome.^ 

He  extended  his  protection  to  the  monks  in  the  East  as 
well  as  in  the  West.  In  the  beginning  of  his  pontificate, 
he  interfered  with  energy  and  perseverance  between  the 
patriarch  of  Constantinople  and  the  abbot  of  the  mountains 
of  Isauria,  in  Asia  Minor,  who  was  accused  of  heresy,  and 
whom  the  patriarch  had  caused  to  be  beaten  in  one  of  the 
churches  of  the  imperial  city.  Through  this  prolonged 
contest,  he  maintained,  with  his  usual  constancy,  the  obser- 
vance of  canons  and  the  rights  of  innocence,  which  were 
equally  outraged  by  the  haughty  rival  of  Roman  supremacy." 
He  gave  to  another  abbot  of  Isauria  a  grant  from  the  revenues 
of  the  Eoinan  Church  more  considerable  than  he  asked,  to 
relieve  the  necessities  of  his  distant  monastery.^  He  sent 
beds  and  clothing  to  St.  John  Climachus,  abbot  of  Mount 
Sinai,  for  the  pilgrims  who  sought  that  sanctuary.*  He 
sent  monks  from  his  own  convent  in  Rome  to  Jerusalem,  to 
found  an  hospital  there.  The  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  carried 
thus  upon  the  wings  of  charity,  penetrated  into  the  East, 
and  established  itself  amid  the  sons  of  Basil  to  await  the 
Crusaders.^ 

In  his  great  correspondence  he  never  ceased  to  extol  and 
regret  monastic  life.  Overwhelmed  with  cares,  labours,  and 
struggles,  his  thoughts  always  returned  to  the  happy  days 
which  he  had  passed  under  the  Benedictine  frock.  "  I 
sailed  before  the  wind,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend  St.  Leander, 

^  "Cochleares  et  circulos." — Epist.,  vi.  56. 

2  Ibid.,  iii.  53 ;  vi.  66  ;  vii.  34.  ^  Ibid.,  v.  38. 

*  Ibid.,  xi.  I.  ■'  Joan.  Diac,  ii.  52. 


74  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

Bishop  of  Seville,  "  when  I  led  a  tranquil  life  in  the  cloister  : 
now  the  tempest  has  seized  me ;  I  have  lost  my  course ;  my 
mind  has  made  shipwreck.  Beaten  by  the  waves,  I  seek 
the  plank  of  your  intercession  for  me,  in  order  that,  not 
being  worthy  to  return  rich  with  my  ship  safe  and  sound 
into  port,  I  may  at  least  struggle  to  shore  by  that  plank."  ^ 
He  indemnified  himself  as  he  best  could,  by  surrounding 
himself  with  his  former  brethren ;  and  procured  a  decree 
for  that  purpose  from  the  council  held  at  Rome  in  595, 
that  the  lay  and  secular  officers  who  rendered  private  service 
to  the  popes  should  be  replaced  by  clerical  attendants,  and 
even  by  monks  chosen  with  care,  to  be  witnesses  of  his 
entire  life.  With  those  whom  he  had  thus  procured  to  be 
the  familiar  companions  of  his  privacy,  he  applied  himself 
to  follow  as  far  as  possible,  in  his  studies,  occupations,  and 
daily  and  nightly  prayers,  the  customs  of  a  monastery ;  so 
that  the  pontifical  palace  offered  a  picture  of  that  church  of 
the  apostolical  times  of  which  monastic  life  was  the  most 
faithful  image.^ 

Most  of  the  monks  whom  he  thus  associated  with  his 
daily  labours  were  drawn  from  his  old  monastery  of  St. 
Andrea,  in  the  inhabitants  of  which  he  had  always  an 
affectionate  confidence.  He  promoted  several  to  the  epis- 
copate, the  most  notable  of  whom  were  Maximin  and 
Marinian,^  whom  he  made  archbishops — one  in  Sicily,  the 

1  "  Quasi  prospero  vento  navigabam.  .  .  .  Saltern  post  damna  ad  littus 
per  tabulam  reducar." — EpisL,  ix.  121. 

2  "  Remotis  a  suo  cubiculo  s^ecularibus,  clericos  ibi  prudentissimos  con- 
siliaros  familiaresque  delegit,  .  .  .  monacborum  vero  sanctissimos  sibi 
familiares  elegit.  .  .  .  Cum  quibus  die  noctuque  versatus  nihil  monasticae 
perfectionis  in  palatio,  nihil  pontificalis  institutionis  in  Ecclesia  dereliquit. 
.  .  .  Cum  eruditissimis  clericis  religiosissimi  monachi.  .  .  .  Talem  ecclesiam 
Romanam  exhibuit  qualis  prima  sub  Apostolis  fuit." — Jo  AN.  DlAC,  ii.  12. 

■*  Marinian,  who  had  long  lived  in  the  same  monastery  with  Gregory, 
was  elected,  in  spite  of  his  own  reluctance,  and  despairing  of  success,  by 
the  people  of  Ravenna,  whose  two  previous  elections  the  pope  had  re- 
fused to  confirm.  Gregory  had,  in  the  end,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
to  reprimand  and  oppose  his  old  friend. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  75 

other  at  Ravenna ;  and  afterwards  Augustine,  who  was  the 
apostle  and  first  metropolitan  of  England,  He  loved  to 
employ  them  as  his  legates,  and  to  make  them  his  repre- 
sentatives with  princes  whose  alliance  he  sought  in  the 
interests  of  the  Church.  Probus,  whom  we  have  already- 
mentioned,  and  who  succeeded  him  as  abbot  of  St.  Andrea, 
established  peace  between  the  king  of  the  Lombards  and 
the  exarch  of  Ravenna ;  and  Cyriac,  who  succeeded  Probus 
in  the  government  of  the  same  abbey,  was  successively  sent, 
as  legate  in  Sardinia,  to  preach  the  faith  to  the  unbelievers, 
and  to  Queen  Brunehaut  in  Burgundy,  and  King  Recarede 
in  Spain,  to  root  out  simony,  and  the  intrusion  of  laymen 
into  the  episcopate.  The  pope  was  not  always  equally 
fortunate  in  the  bestowal  of  his  confidence :  witness  that 
Greek  monk,  Andrew,  who  served  as  his  interpreter  in  his 
correspondence  with  the  Eastern  bishops  (for  Gregory  knew 
no  Greek),  and  who  had  to  be  punished  for  falsifying  his 
translations,  and  attributing  to  the  pontiff  expressions  which 
he  had  never  used.^ 

Surrounded  and  assisted  by  his  dear  companions  of  old, 
Gregory  brought  from  his  monastery  into  the  exercise  of 
the  sovereign  pontificate  that  prodigality  of  alms  and  un- 
wearied solicitude  for  the  poor  which  he  had  learned  and 
long  practised  at  St.  Andrea.  He  invited  twelve  poor 
pilgrims  to  his  table  every  day,  and  served  them,  after 
having  washed  their  hands  or  their  feet,  as  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  do  while  an  abbot.^  Every  month  he  distributed 
to  his  poor,  according  to  the  season,  corn,  wine,  cheese, 
vegetables,  fish,  and  oil ;  adding  perfumes  and  other  more 
delicate  presents  for  the  considerable  people  of  the  town, 
so  as  to  make  them  regard  the  Church  as  the  storehouse  of 
the  world. ^  He  organised  the  regular  service  of  charity  in 
Rome  with  wise  zeal ;   and  carriages  traversed  the  various 

1  Epist.,  vii.  32  ;  xi,  74.  2  Jqan.  DlAC,  ii.  22,  23. 

3  "  Ita  ut  nihil  aliud  quam  communia  quaedam  horrea  communis  puta- 
retur  Ecclesia." — Ibid.,  36, 


76  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

quarters  and  streets  daily,  carrying  help  to  the  sick  poor 
and  those  who  were  ashamed  to  beg ;  ^  to  the  latter  he  sent 
dishes  from  his  own  table,  which  he  blessed  for  the  use  of 
his  poor  friends,  before  he  touched  his  own  repast.  Two 
centuries  after  bis  death,  the  voluminous  list  of  the  poor 
who  shared  his  alms  in  Rome,  and  also  in  the  surrounding 
towns  and  on  the  coast,  was  still  preserved.^  A  beggar 
having  been  found  dead  in  a  distant  quarter  of  the  town, 
he  feared  that  the  unfortunate  man  had  died  of  famine, 
and,  reproaching  himself  with  having  been  his  murderer, 
he  abstained  for  several  days  from  celebrating  mass.^ 

This  spirit,  so  sensitive  to  the  grief  of  others,  was  itself 
a  prey  to  the  most  painful  infirmities.  The  gout  made  the 
last  years  of  his  life  a  kind  of  martyrdom.  The  cry  of  pain 
appears  in  many  of  his  letters.  "  For  nearly  two  years,"  he 
wrote  to  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  "  I  have  been  im- 
prisoned to  my  bed  by  such  pangs  of  gout  that  I  can  scarcely 
rise  for  two  or  three  hours  on  great  holidays  to  celebrate 
solemn  mass.  And  the  intensity  of  the  pain  compels  me 
immediately  to  lie  down  again,  that  I  may  be  able  to  endure 
my  torture,  by  giving  free  course  to  my  groans.  .  .  .  My 
illness  will  neither  leave  me  nor  kill  me.  I  entreat  your 
holiness  to  pray  for  me,  that  I  may  be  soon  delivered,  and 
receive  that  freedom  which  you  know,  and  which  is  the 
glory  of  the  children  of  God."  *  To  a  pious  patrician  lady, 
whom  he  forbade  to  call  herself  his  servant,  and  who  suffered 
from  the  same  malady  :  "  My  body,"  he  said,  "  is  wasted  as 
if  it  was  already  in  the  coffin ;  I  cannot  leave  my  bed.  If 
gout  can  reduce  to  such  a  point  the  corpulent  mass  you 
have  known  me,  how  shall  it  fare  with  your  always  attenu- 

1  "  Quotidianis  diebus  per  omnes  regionum  vicos,  vel  compita  .  .  .  per 
constitutes  veredarios.  .  .  .  Verecundioribus  .  .  .  ostiatim  dirigere  cura- 
bat  scutellam." — Joan.  Diac,  ii.  28. 

2  "  Praegrande  volumen." — Ihid. 
»  lUd. 

*  "  Ut  cruciatum  meum  possim  interrumpente  gemitu  tolerare.  ...  In 
illam  quam  bene  nostis  libertatem  glorise  filiorum  Dei." — Epist.,  xi.  32. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  77 

ated  frame  ? "  ^  And  finally,  to  his  former  brother,  the 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna  :  "  For  a  long  time  I  have  ceased  to 
get  up  ;  sometimes  I  am  tortured  by  the  gout,  sometimes  a 
kind  of  burning  pain  spreads  over  all  my  body,  and  takes 
all  courage  from  me.  ...  I  say,  in  a  word,  I  am  infected 
with  this  pernicious  humour  to  such  an  extent,  that  life  is 
a  burden  to  me,  and  that  I  wait  for  and  desire  death  as  the 
sole  remedy.  Provided  only  that  my  sins,  which  these  pangs 
ought  to  purify,  be  not  aggravated  by  my  murmurs  ! "  " 

His  own  suffering  did  not  render  him  less  attentive  to 
the  misery  of  his  neighbour.  From  his  bed  of  pain  he 
wrote  to  the  same  Marinian,  his  old  friend  and  companion 
in  monastic  life :  "  A  man  from  Eavenna  has  plunged  me 
into  grief  by  telling  me  that  you  were  attacked  by  blood- 
spitting.  We  have  consulted  all  the  physicians  with  the 
greatest  care  upon  your  case,  and  transmit  to  you  what 
they  say.  Silence  and  repose  are  necessary  to  you  above 
everything ;  you  will  scarcely  find  them  in  your  metropolis. 
.  .  .  You  must  come  to  me  before  the  summer,  in  order 
that  I,  helpless  though  I  am,  may  specially  watch  your 
illness,  and  be  the  guardian  of  your  repose,  for  the  doctors 
say  that  the  danger  is  specially  great  in  summer.  ...  It 
is  very  important  that  you  should  return  to  your  church 
cured.  And  then  for  myself,  who  am  so  near  death,  if  God 
call  me  before  thee,  I  would  die  in  thine  arms.  ...  If 
thou  comest,  come  with  few  servants,  for  thou  shalt  lodge  in 
my  palace,  and  the  people  of  this  church  will  serve  thee."  ^ 

"It  is  fine,"  says  one  of  our  contemporaries  who  knows 
the  secrets  of  sanctity  and  charity,  "  to  see  an  existence  so 

1  "  Quern  qualis  fuerim  nostis.  ...  Si  ergo  mei  molem  corporis,  ,  ,  . 
quid  de  vestro  corpore  sentiam,  quod  nimis  siccum  ante  dolores  fuit  ?  " — 
Epist.,  xi.  44.  -  Hid.,  xi.  32. 

'  "Veniente  quodam  Ravennate  homine.  .  .  .  Sollicite  et  singillatim 
eos  quos  hie  doctos  lectione  novimus  medicos  tenuimus  inquiri  .  .  .  ut 
.  .  .  ego  ...  in  quantum  valeo,  qnietem  tuam  custodiam.  .  .  .  Ipse 
valde  sum  debilis.  .  .  .  Inter  tuas  manus  transire  debeam  .  .  .  cum  paucis 
tibi  veniendum  est,  quia  mecum  in  episcopio  manens." — Ibid.,  xi.  33. 


78  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

short  and  troubled  suffice  for  such  works.  We  love  to  find 
human  weakness  in  great  men.  Antique  heroism  is  made 
of  marble  and  bronze  ;  we  admire,  but  we  do  not  imitate  it. 
But  Christianity  has  put  the  souls  of  heroes  in  hearts  of  flesh. 
It  destroys  nothing  of  the  innocent  weakness  of  nature ;  it 
finds  its  strength  there.      We  are  not  made  of  stone."  ^ 

Amid  these  insupportable  sufierings,  and  up  to  his  last 
moments,  he  continued  with  unwearied  activity  to  dictate  his 
correspondence,  and  to  concern  himself  with  the  interests  of 
the  Church  and  of  monasteries.  One  of  his  last  epistles  was 
to  solicit  the  punishment  of  a  soldier  who  had  seduced  a  nun.^ 
He  died  on  the  I2th  March  604,  aged  nearly  fifty-five,  in 
the  thirteenth  year  of  his  pontificate.  He  was  buried  in  St. 
Peter's  ;  and  in  the  epitaph  engraved  on  his  tomb,  it  is  said, 
that  "  after  having  conformed  all  his  actions  to  his  doctrine, 
the  consul  of  God  went  to  enjoy  eternal  triumph."  ^ 

He  had,  like  so  many  other  great  hearts,  to  struggle  with 
ingratitude,  not  only  during  his  life,  but  after  his  death.  If 
we  may  believe  his  biographer,  Rome  was  afflicted  with  a 
great  famine  under  his  successor  Sabinian,  who  put  an  end 
to  the  charities  which  Gregory  had  granted  to  the  poor,  on 
the  plea  that  there  was  nothing  remaining  in  the  treasury 
of  the  Church.  The  enemies  of  the  deceased  pope  then  ex- 
cited the  people  against  him,  calling  him  the  prodigal  and 
waster  of  Roman  patrimony ;  and  that  ungrateful  people, 
whom  he  had  loved  and  helped  so  much,  began  to  burn  his 
writings,  as  if  to  annihilate  or  dishonour  his  memory.  But 
one  of  the  monks  who  had  followed  him  from  the  monastery 
to  the  pontifical  palace,  his  friend,  the  deacon  Peter,  inter- 
posed. He  represented  to  the  incendiaries  that  these  writ- 
ings were  already  spread  through  the  entire  world,  and  that 
it  was,  besides,  sacrilege  to  burn  the  work  of  a  holy  doctor, 

^  OzANAM,  unpublished  fragment.  ^  Eplst.,  xiv.  10. 

*  "Implebatque  actu  quidquid  sermone  docebat.  .  .  . 
Hisque,  Dei  consul  factus,  laetare  triumphis. 
Nam  mercedem  operum  jam  sine  fine  tenes." 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  79 

upon  whom  he  swore  he  had  himself  seen  the  Holy  Spirit 
hovering  under  the  form  of  a  dove.^  And  as  if  to  confirm 
his  oath,  after  having  ended  his  address,  he  breathed  forth 
his  last  sigh,  a  valiant  witness  of  truth  and  friendship. - 

Posterity  has  sufficiently  avenged  Gregory  of  that  wrong. 
In  him  it  has  recognised  a  man  whose  name  stands  out  like 
a  pharos  in  the  night  of  the  past.  The  highest  personifica- 
tion of  that  papacy  which  neglected  no  exertions  to  save  the 
East,  and  which  vivified  the  West  by  delivering  it  from  the 
Byzantine  yoke,  is  found  in  him.  The  judgment  of  St.  Ilde- 
fonso,  who  was  almost  his  contemporary,  and  who  declared 
that  he  was  greater  than  Anthony  in  sanctity,  Cyprian  in 
eloquence,  and  Augustine  in  knowledge,  has  been  repeated 
by  posterity.^ 

Bossuet  has  summed  up  his  life  with  that  terseness 
which  includes  everything,  and  which  belongs  only  to  him- 
self. "  This  great  pope  .  .  .  subdued  the  Lombards  ;  saved 
Rome  and  Italy,  though  the  emperors  could  give  him  no 
assistance ;  repressed  the  new-born  pride  of  the  patriarchs 
of  Constantinople ;  enlightened  the  whole  Church  by  his 
doctrine ;  governed  the  East  and  the  West  with  as  much 
vigour  as  humility  ;  and  gave  to  the  world  a  perfect  model 
of  ecclesiastical  government." 

Let  us,  however,  add  and  repeat,  to  justify  ourselves  for 
lingering  thus  upon  his  pontificate,  that  he  was  the  restorer 
of  monastic  discipline,  the  protector,  propagator,  and  legis- 
lator of  the  monks  of  the  West ;  that  he  had  nothing  more 
at  heart  than  the  interests  of  monastic  life ;  finally,  that  it 
was  the  Benedictine  order  which  gave  to  the  Church  him 
whom  no  one  would  have  hesitated  to  call  the  greatest  of 
the  popes,  had  not  the  same  order,  five  centuries  later,  pro- 
duced St.  Gregory  VII. 

^  Thence  the  custom,  in  art,  during  the  middle  ages,  of  always  repre- 
senting St.  Gregory  with  a  dove  whispering  to  him. 

2  "Confessor  veritatis  meruit  sepeliri." — Joan.  DiAC,  vi.  69.  Compare 
Paul.  Diac,  Vit.  Greg.,  c.  24.  ^  j)^  y^^   Illustr.,  c.  i. 


OO  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

The  human  race,  in  its  weakness  and  folly,  has  always 
decreed  the  highest  place  in  its  admiration  to  conquerors, 
governors  of  nations,  and  masters  of  the  world,  who  have 
done  great  things,  but  who  have  done  them  only  by  great 
means,  with  a  frightful  expense  of  men,  money,  and  false- 
hood, trampling  laws,  morality,  and  sworn  faith  under  foot. 
A  detestable  error,  which  renders  the  ignorant  and  innocent 
involuntary  accomplices  of  all  these  startling  crimes,  the  ap- 
plauses of  which  they  echo  from  one  to  the  other.  The 
merit  of  success  is  small  when  the  conqueror  shrinks  at 
nothing,  and  recoils  from  no  sacrifice  of  life,  virtue,  or  truth. 
Even  in  its  human  aspect,  supreme  greatness  is  not  there. 
That  consists  in  working  great  results  by  small  means,  in 
triumphing  over  strength  by  weakness,  and  specially  in 
surmounting  obstacles  and  vanquishing  adversaries  with  a 
respect  for  law,  virtue,  and  truth.  This  is  what  Gregory 
desired  and  what  he  accomplished.  He  is  truly  Gregory 
the  Great,  because  he  issued  irreproachable  from  numberless 
and  boundless  difficulties ;  because  he  gave  as  a  foundation 
to  the  increasing  grandeur  of  the  Holy  See,  the  renown  of 
his  virtue,  the  candour  of  his  innocence,  the  humble  and 
inexhaustible  tenderness  of  his  heart. 


III. — The  Monks  in  Spain. 

We  shall  shortly  be  called  upon  to  exhibit  the  all-powerful 
influence  of  St.  Gregory,  as  pope  and  monk,  upon  the  great 
and  celebrated  island  which  owes  to  him  its  final  conversion 
to  the  Christian  faith  ;  but  at  present  it  is  fit  that  we  should 
cast  a  glance  upon  another  country,  the  destinies  of  the 
Church  and  monastic  order  in  which  are  also  connected, 
though  less  directly,  with  his  memory.  Let  us  cross  Spain 
before  we  reach  England, 

During  the  time  of  his  residence  as  nuncio  at  Constan- 
tinople, towards  the  year  580,  Gregory,  as  has  been  seen, 
met    with    a    Spanish    monk    called    Leander,    who    was 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  8 1 

honoured  by  the  double  consecration  of  the  bishopric  and 
exile. 

Spain,  from  the  time  of  the  great  invasion  of  the  Roman 
empire  by  the  Germanic  races,  had  been  shared  among  the 
Sueves,  Alans,  and  Vandals,  and  had  finally  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Visigoths,  who  had  for  two  centuries  estab- 
lished themselves  there,  and  who  were  now,  by  union  with 
the  kingdom  of  the  Sueves  in  5  8  5 ,  its  sole  masters.  These 
Visigoths  were  considered  the  least  barbarous  of  the  Bar- 
barians, They  certainly  could  appreciate  and  respect  better 
than  the  others  the  work  of  Roman  and  Christian  civilisation, 
in  those  regions  from  whence  Seneca  and  Lucan,  Quintillian 
and  Silius,  had  thrown  so  much  lustre  on  the  decline  of 
Roman  literature,  and  from  whence,  succeeding  many  illus- 
trious martyrs,  the  Fathers  of  the  Council  of  Elvira,  such 
as  the  great  Bishop  Osius,  who  presided  at  the  Council  of 
Nicaea,  had  honoured  and  consoled  the  Church  in  her  deci- 
sive struggles  against  imperial  persecution.  But  like  all  the 
Gothic  race,  like  Theodoric  and  the  other  successors  of  Alaric, 
the  Visigoths  had  received  Christianity  only  through  the 
channel  of  Arianism  ;  through  their  means  Spain  was  now 
overrun  by  it.  This  was  the  scourge  from  which  she  was 
delivered  by  the  monk  of  Seville,  the  friend  of  Gregory. 

However,  before  the  time  of  Gregory  and  Leander,  and 
even  before  St.  Benedict,  Christian  Spain  had  already  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  monastic  order,  and  found  in  it  a 
precious  succour  against  the  Arianism  of  her  conquerors. 
Authorities  are  not  agreed  upon  the  precise  date  of  its  intro- 
duction into  the  Iberian  peninsula.^  According  to  some,  it 
was  the  African  St.  Donatus  who,  flying  with  seventy  monks 
from  the  Barbarians,  was  received  in  Valentia  by  a  noble  lady 
called  Minicea,  and   founded,  with  her  help,  the  monastery 

^  The  work  entitled,  VindicicB  Antiquitatum  Monasticarum  HispanicB  adv. 
Caiet.  Cennium,  Opera.  D.  Gabr.  Mar.  ScARMALLII,  Ahhat.  SS.  Flor.etLucilL, 
Arrettii,  1752,  may  be  consulted  on  the  subject.  Scarmaglio  even  quotes 
a  decree  of  the  Council  of  Saragossa,  in  381,  which  already  made  mention 
of  the  monks. — Dissert,  ii.  c.  i,  No.  5. 

VOL.  II.  F 


I 


82  ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT 

of  Servitanum,  the  most  ancient  in  Spain. ^  It  is  certain 
that  every  province  and  canton  had  soon  its  monastery. 
The  mountains  which  stretched  from  the  Pyrenees  towards 
the  Ebro,  in  Biscay  and  Navarre,  were  peopled  with  hermits 
who  gradually  adopted  a  life  in  common,  conforming  gene- 
rally to  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.  It  was  professed  ^  by  St. 
Emilian,  who  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  and  popular 
monks  of  Spain.  At  first  a  shepherd  in  the  mountains  of 
La  Kioja,  in  Aragon,  he  led  his  flocks  to  the  wildest  gorges, 
and,  charming  the  solitude  by  the  sounds  of  his  guitar, 
learned  to  open  his  soul  to  celestial  harmonies.  He  became 
a  hermit,  and  lived  thus  for  forty  years  ;  then  he  became  a 
monk  and  abbot,  and  died  a  centenarian  in  574,  after  having 
startled  by  his  miracles  and  austerities  the  two  nations,  the 
Sueves  and  Visigoths,  who  still  disputed  the  possession  of 
the  country.^ 

The  Sueves,  who  occupied  the  entire  north-east  of  Spain, 
and  who  were  much  attached  to  Arianism,  had  for  their 
apostle,  at  the  same  period,  a  monk  named  Martin,  born  in 
Hungary,  like  his  famous  namesake,  St.  Martin  of  Tours. 
He  introduced  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  into  the  regions 
which  are  now  Galicia  and  the  northern  part  of  Portugal. 
He  was  himself  the  abbot  of  Dumes,  at  the  gates  of  the 

1  From  the  acts  of  the  Councils  of  516  and  524,  it  is  apparent  that  there 
had  been  monks  in  Spain  before  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  the  time 
pjenerally  assigned  to  the  coming  of  St.  Donatus.  Mabill.,  Prmf.  in  scec.  i, 
Bened.,  n.  23  and  72  ;  Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  iii.  c.  26-37  ;  Bulteau,  t.  i.  pp. 
305)  317'  According  to  others,  the  most  ancient  monastery  of  Spain  was 
Asane.near  Huesca.in  Aragon,  founded  about  506,  and  of  which  St. Victorian 
was  abbot  for  sixty  years.     Fortunatus  says  of  him,  in  his  epitaph — 

"  Plurima  per  patriam  monachorum  examina  fundens, 
Floribus  »ternis  mellificavit  apes." 

2  Act.  SS.  0.  B.  Prcef.  in  scec.  i,  §  74,  and  t.  i.  p.  197. 

3  See  his  life  by  St.  Braulio,  Bishop  of  Saragossa  in  the  seventh  century, 
ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  197.  "Minabat  oves  ad  interiora  montium.  .  .  . 
Citharam  vehebat,  ne  ad  greges  custodiam  torpor  impeditamentum." — 
Ibid.,  p.  200.  The  monastery  founded  over  his  tomb,  and  called  San  Milan 
of  CogoUa,  became  one  of  the  most  important  in  Spain. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  83 

metropolitan  city  of  Braga,  of  which  he  became  bishop, 
remaining  at  the  same  time  abbot  of  his  monastery.^  By 
his  writings,  his  virtues,  and  his  influence,  he  led  back  the 
greater  part  of  the  Sueve  nation  to  Catholic  unity,  at  least 
for  a  time,  and  until  the  new  persecution  which  preceded  the 
great  defeat  of  Arianism, 

But  the  victory  of  orthodoxy  was  final,  and  the  extension 
of  the  Benedictine  order  became  a  great  fact  for  the  Church 
and  Spain,  only  under  the  pontificate  of  Gregory,  and  by 
the  preponderating  influence  of  an  illustrious  and  holy  family, 
the  first  glory  of  which  was  the  monk-bishop  Leander. 

Born  in  that  Andalusia  where  the  Vandals  had  fortunately 
left  only  their  name,  Leander  was  the  son  of  a  duke,  pro- 
bably of  Greco-Roman  race,^  but  whose  eldest  daughter 
married  Leuvigild,  the  king  of  the  Visigoths.  He  em- 
braced monastic  life  early,  and  drew  from  it  that  spirit  of 
self-devotion  and  discipline  which  gained  him  the  honour  of 
exercising  supreme  influence  over  the  future  destiny  of  his 
country.  He  was  a  monk  at  Seville  itself,  which  had  been 
up  to  that  time  the  capital  of  the  Visigoth  kings,  and  of 
which  he  became  metropolitan  bishop  in  579.^  In  that 
city  which  was  considered  the  holy  city,  the  Jerusalem  of 
the  south  of  Spain,  he  formed,  under  the  shadow  of  his  see, 
a  school,  which  was  designed  to  extend  at  once  the  orthodox 
faith  and  the  study  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences.^  He  himself 
presided  over  the  exercises  of  the  learned  masters  and  nume- 
rous pupils  whom  he  attracted  to  it.  Among  these  pupils  were 
the  two  sons  of  the  king,  his  own  nephews,  Hermenegild  and 

^  Dumes  was  erected  into  a  bishopric  in  562,  and  this  St.  Martin  died  in 
580.  Gregory  of  Tours  makes  mention  of  him,  Hist,  v.  38,  and  De  Mirac. 
S.  Martini,  i.  11. 

-  This  is  implied  in  his  name,  Severianus,  and  those  of  all  his  children  : 
Leander,  Isidore,  Fulgentius,  Theodora,  Florentine.  The  Byzantine  em- 
perors had  still  some  possessions  in  Spain. 

3  He  was  also  bishop  for  some  time  of  St.  Claude  of  Leon,  in  the  north 
of  Spain.— Yepes,  Cent.  Secund.     Compare  ACT.  SS.  0.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  372. 

^  M.  I'Abbe  Bourret  published  in  1855  a  remarkable  thesis,  entitled 
L'Ecole  Chritienne  de  Seville  sous  la  Monarchie  des  Visigoths. 


84  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

Eecarede.  He  succeeded  in  winning  over  from  Arianism 
the  elder  of  the  two,  and  his  example  was  followed  by  many 
others.  Hermenegild  was  confirmed  in  the  faith  of  Nicaea 
by  his  wife  Ingonde,  a  French  princess  of  the  orthodox  race 
of  Clovis,  the  daughter  of  King  Sigebert,  and  of  the  cele- 
brated Brunehaut,  who  was  herself  the  daughter  of  a  king 
of  the  Visigoths.  The  young  Ingonde  resisted  heroically 
the  brutal  violence  which  her  mother-in-law  employed  to 
make  her  embrace  Arianism,  and  gave  thus  to  her  husband 
an  example  of  that  constancy  which  was  afterwards  to  lead 
him  to  martyrdom. 

Leuvigild,  in  transferring  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  Visigoths  from  Seville  to  Toledo,  had  associated  his  eldest 
son  with  himself  in  the  government,  and  assigned  him  Seville 
for  his  residence.  But  soon  persecution  arose,  and  with  it 
civil  war.  Leuvigild  shrank  from  no  means  of  extending 
heresy  ;  he  gained  over  even  some  bishops,  and  condemned 
to  prison  or  exile  those  who,  like  Leander,  resisted  his  violence. 
He  won  about  the  same  time  the  crown  of  the  Sueves,  a  nation 
then  scarcely  restored  to  the  orthodox  faith,  and  carried  per- 
secution and  all  its  terrors  among  them.  The  holy  abbot 
Vincent  was  sacrificed,  with  twelve  of  his  monks,  before  the 
door  of  his  own  monastery  at  Leon,  for  refusing  to  deny  the 
divinity  of  the  Son  of  God,  as  set  forth  in  the  Nicaean  creed.'^ 
His  tyranny  respected  civil  liberty  no  more  than  liberty 
of  conscience,  and  the  Visigoth  nobility  no  more  than  the 
conquered  nations ;  he  attacked  by  persecution,  exile,  and 
torture,  all  the  most  considerable  persons  in  his  kingdom.^ 

1  Yepes  attributes  this  martyrdom  to  a  king  of  the  Sueves,  and  places  it 
in  the  year  554  ;  but  Mabillon  agrees  with  Baronius  in  fixing  the  date  584, 
and  under  the  reign  of  Leuvigild.  Compare  Act.  SS.  0.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  287, 
and  Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  vii.  c.  27. 

-  "Exstitit  et  quibusdam  suarum  perniciosus.  Nam  vi  cupiditatis  at 
livoris,  quoscumque  potentes  ac  nobiles  vidit,  aut  capite  damnavit,  aut 
opibus  ablatis  proscripsit." — S.  Isidgei,  Chronic,  era  608.  The  holy  his- 
torian adds  that  he  was  the  first  among  the  Visigoth  kings  who  affected  to 
sit  on  a  throne,  and  to  wear  a  royal  mantle.  "  Nam  ante  eum  et  habitus 
et  consessus  omnis  ut  genti,  ita  et  regibus  erat." — Ibid. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT  85 

Leander,  describing  the  state  of  his  country  under  the  yoke 
of  the  persecutor,  says,  that  a  man  truly  free  was  no  longer 
to  be  seen,  and  that,  by  a  just  judgment  of  God,  the  soil 
itself,  taken  from  its  lawful  proprietors,  had  lost  its  former 
fertility.^  The  unnatural  father  ended  by  besieging  his  son 
in  Seville.  The  young  king,  made  prisoner  after  a  long 
resistance,  and  obliged  to  receive  the  communion  from  the 
hands  of  an  Arian  bishop,  preferred  to  die,  and  was  slain  in 
his  prison,  on  Easter  eve  of  the  year  586. 

The  monasteries  which  already  existed  in  Spain  naturally 
suffered  much  in  that  war.  In  one  of  these,  dedicated  to 
St.  Martin,  and  situated  between  Sagonte  and  Carthagena, 
the  monks,  on  the  approach  of  the  royal  army,  abandoned 
their  old  abbot  and  took  flight,  with  the  intention  of  conceal- 
ing themselves  in  an  island  of  the  sea.  The  Goths  arrived, 
and  sacked  the  defenceless  monastery,  where  they  found  the 
abbot  alone,  bowed  down  by  age,  but  kej)t  erect  by  virtue,  as 
says  Gregory  of  Tours,  to  whom  we  owe  the  tale.  One  of 
them  drew  his  sword  to  kill  the  abbot,  but,  as  he  was  about 
to  strike,  fell  back  and  died.  At  this  sight  the  others  fled. 
Leuvigild  himself,  when  informed  of  the  fact,  was  touched  by 
it,  and  ordered  the  restitution  of  everything  that  had  been 
taken  from  the  monastery,  thus  saved  by  the  courage  and 
sanctity  of  the  old  abbot.^ 

It  was  during  this  struggle  between  father  and  son,  which 
lasted  several  years,  and  before  he  was  himself  exiled,  that 
Leander  was  sent  by  Hermenegild  to  Constantinople,  to  claim 
the  aid  of  the  Byzantine  emperors,  who  had  still  retained 
some  possessions  in  Spain,  with  their  garrisons.    It  was  there 

^  "  Ego  expertus  loquor,  sic  perdidisset  statum  et  speciem  illam  patriam, 
ut  nee  liber  quisquam  circa  supersit,  nee  terra  ipsa  solita  sit  ubertate 
fecunda,  et  non  sine  Dei  judicio.  Terra  enim  cives  erepti  sunt  et  concessa 
extraneo,  mox  ut  dignitatem  perdidit,  caruit  et  feconditate." — S.  Leande., 
De  Inslit.  Virgin.,  c.  ult. 

^  "  Cum  exercitus  ,  ,  .  ut  assolet,  graviter  loca  sancta  concuteret.  .  .  . 
Abbatem  senio  incurvatum  sed  sanctitate  erectum," — Gkeg.  Tur.,  Be  Glor. 
Confess.,  c.  12. 


86  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

that  the  monk-bishop,  the  envoy  of  a  princely  martyr  to 
orthodoxy,  met  that  other  monk  set  apart  for  the  highest 
destiny,  and  that  one  of  these  tender  and  strong  friendships 
of  which  it  is  pleasant  to  find  so  many  examples  in  the  lives 
of  the  saints,  was  formed  between  Gregory  and  Leander. 
The  brotherly  entreaties  of  Leander  induced  the  holy  doctor 
to  undertake  the  greatest  of  his  works,  the  Commentary  upon 
Job,  which  is  also  called  the  Moralia  of  St.  Gregory.  The 
intimate  and  lasting  tenderness  which  united  these  two  great 
men,  and  which  continued  through  the  premature  infirmities 
of  which  both  were  victims/  shines  through  various  portions 
of  the  correspondence  of  Gregory,  and  dictated  to  him  those 
accents  which  breathe  across  so  many  intervening  centuries 
the  immortal  perfume  of  real  love.  "  Absent  in  the  body," 
wrote  the  pope  to  his  friend,  "  you  are  always  present  to  my 
eyes,  for  I  bear  your  lineaments  graven  on  my  heart.  .  .  . 
You  can  read  in  your  own  heart  what  an  ardent  thirst  I  have 
to  see  you,  for  you  love  me  sufficiently  for  that.  .  .  .  What 
a  cruel  distance  separates  us !  I  send  you  my  books.  Eead 
them  with  care,  and  then  weep  over  my  sins,  since  I  appear 
to  know  so  well  that  which  I  do  so  ill.  My  letter  is  very 
short ;  it  will  show  you  how  much  I  am  overwhelmed  by  the 
business  and  storms  of  my  Church  since  I  write  so  briefly  to 
him  I  love  most  in  the  world."  ^  And  later,  "  I  have  received 
your  letter,  written  with  the  pen  of  charity.  It  is  in  your 
heart  that  you  have  dipped  your  pen.  The  wise  and  worthy 
men  who  have  heard  it  read,  have  been  at  once  moved  to  the 
depth  of  their  hearts.  Each  of  them  offered  you  the  hand  of 
love  ;  they  seemed  not  only  to  have  heard  you,  but  to  see 
you  with  the  gentleness  of  your  soul.  They  were  all  inspired 
with  admiration,   and  that  flame    lighted    in   your   hearers 

^  "  De  podagrae  vero  molestia  Sanctitas  Vestra  .  .  .  affligetur,  cujus 
dolore  assiduo  et  ipse  vehementer  attritus  sum." — S.  Geeg.,  Ep.,  ix.  121. 

2  "  Quam  absentem  corpore,pr£esentem  mihi  te  semper  intueor,quia  vultus 
tui  imaginem  intra  cordis  viscera  impressam  porto." — Epist.,  i.  41.  "Quanto 
ardore  videre  te  sitiam,  quia  valde  me  diligis,  in  tui  tabulis  cordis  leges 
.  .  .  quando  ei  parum  loquor  quern  magis  omnibus  diligo." — Ibid.,  v.  49. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  87 

demonstrated  your  own  ;  for  no  man  can  light  the  sacred  fire 
in  others  without  being  himself  consumed  by  it." 

However,  the  excess  of  evil  hastened  its  end,  and  the 
Church  was  about  to  attain  a  sudden  and  complete  triumph. 
The  tyrant  Leuvigild,  the  parricide-king,^  struck  by  a  mortal 
sickness,  was  seized  with  remorse ;  upon  his  deathbed  he 
ordained  the  recall  of  Leander,  and  gave  him  as  a  guide 
to  his  son  and  successor  Recarede,  recommending  the  latter 
to  embrace  the  Catholic  faith.  The  new  king,  who  had 
been,  like  his  brother,  the  pupil  of  Leander,  hastened  to 
obey.  He  became  a  Catholic  immediately,  and  undertook 
the  conversion  of  his  people.  After  long  controversies  with 
the  Arian  clergy,  he  succeeded  in  overcoming  all  resistance, 
but  by  discussion,  and  not  by  force.^  Four  years  after  his 
accession  to  the  throne,  having  confirmed  his  reign  by  bril- 
liant victories  over  the  Franks,  he  proclaimed,  at  the  third 
Council  of  Toledo,  the  abjuration  of  Arianism  by  the  united 
nation  of  Goths  and  Sueves.  The  king  there  declared  that 
the  illustrious  nation  of  Goths,  separated  up  to  that  time 
by  the  perversity  of  its  doctors  from  the  universal  Church, 
returned  to  unity,  and  demanded  to  be  instructed  in  orthodox 
Catholic  doctrine.  He  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops 
his  profession  of  faith,  written  by  his  own  hand,  along  with 
that  of  eight  Arian  bishops,  of  his  nobility,  and  of  all  his 
people. 

Leander,  in  his  capacity  of  pope's  legate,  naturally  pre- 
sided at  this  great  assembly,  in  which  sat  seventy-eight 
bishops,   and    the    deliberations   of   which    were   eminently 

1  "  Solius  charitatis  calamo  scriptam.  Ex  corde  enim  lingua  tinxerat 
quod  in  chartse  pagina  refundebat.  .  .  .  Nisi  enim  prius  in  se  faces  ardeant, 
alium  non  succendunt." — Epist.,  ix.  121. 

2  "Pater  vero  perfidus  et  parricida."— S.  GREG.,  loc.  cit. 

3  "  Sacerdotes  sectse  Ariana;  sapienti  colloquio  aggressus,  ratione  potius 
quam  imperio  converti  ad  Catholicam  fidem  facit,  gentemque  omnium 
Gothorum  ac  Suevorum  ad  unitatem  et  pacem  revocat  Ecclesiae  Chris- 
tianse." — JOANNIS  abbatis  BICLAEENSIS  Chronic,  ap.  Hispania  Elustr.,  1066, 
t.  iv.  p.  137. 


88  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

assisted  by  another  monk,  Eutropius,  abbot  of  that  monas- 
tery of  Servitanum,  which  was  considered  the  most  ancient 
in  Spain.^  A  third  monk,  John,  who  had  been  exiled  like 
Leander,  and  had  consoled  his  exile  by  founding  a  great 
monastery  under  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  in  Catalonia,  re- 
corded the  great  transformation  of  which  he  was  witness 
in  a  chronicle  by  which  the  series  of  monastic  historians 


r 


jun  in  Spain.^ 


Thus  was  accomplished  in  the  Peninsula,  under  the  auspices 
of  a  great  pope  and  a  great  bishop,  both  monks  and  close 
friends,  the  triumph  of  that  orthodoxy  which  found  for  ten 
centuries  a  true  champion  in  the  Spanish  nation,  where,  even 
amid  decay  and  downfall,  its  instinct  and  tradition  are  still 
preserved. 

Leander  hastened  to  announce  the  triumph  of  truth,  and 
the  thorough  conversion  of  the  king,  his  nephew,  to  Gregory, 
who  showed  himself  always  aifectionately  interested  in  the 
new  conquests  of  the  Church.  He  recommended  Leander 
to  watch  attentively  over  the  soul  of  the  prince,  lest  pride 
and  impurity  should  come  to  stain  his  young  orthodoxy. 
Recarede  entered  into  direct  correspondence  with  the  pope. 
In  order  to  render  himself  more  agreeable  to  a  pontiff  who 
had  learnt  in  the  cloister  how  to  govern  the  Church,  he 
took  for  his  representatives  abbots  chosen  with  care  from 
the  Spanish  monasteries,^  to  whom  he  intrusted  the  pre- 
sents which  he  intended  for  Gregory.  But  they  were  ship- 
wrecked, and  lost  everything  upon  rocks  near  Marseilles. 
Recarede  was  not  discouraged,  and  afterwards  sent  a  golden 
chalice  to  the  pope,  with  a  letter  in  semi-barbarous  Latin, 
but  full  of  heart.      He  entreated  the  pope,  who  wrote  to 

1  "  Summa  tamen  synodalis  negotii  penes  sanctum  Leandrnm  .  .  .  et 
beatissimum  Eutropium  monasterii  Servitani  abbatem  fuit."— JOANNIS 
ahhatis  BiCLAKENSIS  Chronic,  ap.  Hispania  Illustr.,  1608,  t.  iv.  p.  137. 

2  S.  ISIDOEI,  Be  Script.  Eccl. ;  Makiana,  Be  Reb.  ffispan.,\ib.  v.  c.  13. 
See  the  letter  from  the  Bishop  of  Barcelona,  respecting  the  site  of  this 
monastery  of  Biclara  or  Vilclara,  in  Mabillon,  Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  iii.  c.  35. 

3  "Ex  monasteriis  abbates  elegimus." — Apud  S.  Gkeg.,  Epist.,  ix.  61. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  89 

SO  many,  to  write  to  him  also,  and  added,  "Those  who  are 
divided  by  earth  and  sea,  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  seems 
often  to  attract  to  each  other ;  those  who  have  never  seen 
you  rejoice  in  your  fame.  Never  forget  to  recommend  us 
to  God,  I  and  my  people,  whom  you  have  seen  in  your  own 
time  gained  to  Christ :  the  breadth  of  the  world  separates 
us,  but  may  charity  unite  us  ! "  ^  Like  the  Frank  kings, 
Recarede  afterwards  desired  the  good  oflBces  of  the  pope 
with  the  Byzantine  court,  in  which  all  the  Barbarian  princes 
always  saw  a  reflection  of  ancient  Roman  grandeur.  Gregory 
on  his  side  responded  to  him  with  affection  and  in  detail : 
he  insisted  upon  the  conditions  of  eternal  salvation,  warned 
him  especially  against  temptations  to  pride  and  anger,  and 
proved  that  the  conversion  of  his  people  could  not  have 
a  better  guarantee  than  the  humility  of  his  soul  and  the 
purity  of  his  life."  He  sent  this  answer  by  his  friend  the 
abbot  Cyriac,  whom  he  calls  the  "  father  of  our  monastery,"  ^ 
and  whom  he  made  his  legate  in  Spain,  confiding  to  him 
the  care  of  proceeding  against  simony  and  the  intrusion  of 
laymen  into  the  episcopate,  as  he  had  already  done  in  France. 
He  sent  the  pallium  on  the  same  occasion  to  Leander,  who 
preceded  his  friend  to  the  tomb  by  some  years,  dying  at  the 
same  time  as  King  Recarede  in  601.  Spain  has  always 
honoured  in  him  her  doctor  and  apostle,  the  principal  instru- 
ment of  her  return  to  Catholic  unity.^ 

All  his  family  were  associated  in  this  work.  His  father 
and  mother  had  been,  like  himself,  exiled  for  the  faith,  and 
died  in   that  exile.      His  brother  Fulgentius,  a  bishop  like 

^  "Nonnunquam  solet  ut  quos  spatia  terrarum  sive  maria  dividunt, 
Christi  gratia  ceu  visibiliter  glutinare.  .  .  .  Nos  gentesque  nostras  .  .  . 
quae  vestris  sunt  a  Christi  acquisita  temporibiis  .  .  .  ut  .  .  .  quos  orbis 
latitude  dissociat  .  .  .  vera  charitas  convalescat. " 

^  Epist.,  ix.  122. 

3  "  Monasterii  nostri  pattern. " — Hid.,  ix.  120. 

■^  "  Adeo  ut  non  immerito  eum  colant  Hispani  tanquam  gentis  suae  doc- 
torem  et  apostolum,  cui  potissimum  debet  Hispania  quod  et  rectam  fidem 
et  Catholicos  habeat  reges."— DAcheky,  Act.  SS.  0.  £.,  t.  i.  p.  376. 


90  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

himself,  shared  his  combats  and  his  victory.  His  sister 
Florentine,  embracing  monastic  life,  became  the  superior 
of  forty  convents  and  a  thousand  nuns,  and  by  her  know- 
ledge, her  virtue,  and  even  by  her  sacred  songs,  was  worthy 
of  taking  her  place  at  the  head  of  all  the  illustrious  nuns 
whom  the  country  of  St.  Theresa  has  given  to  the  Church.^ 
Leander,  who  loved  her  tenderly,  wrote  for  her  use  a  special 
rule.^ 

"  I  have  considered,"  he  says  to  her  in  the  preamble  of 
this  rule,  "  dearest  sister,  what  wealth  or  patrimony  I  could 
leave  to  thee ;  many  fallacious  things  have  occurred  to  my 
mind,  which  I  have  driven  away  as  troublesome  flies  are 
brushed  away  by  the  hand.  Of  all  that  I  have  seen  under 
the  sun,  there  is  nothing  worthy  of  thee.  It  is  above  the 
skies  that  we  must  seek  the  true  wealth,  the  gift  of  holy 
virginity.  ...  I  am  not  capable,  beloved  sister,  of  extolling 
it  enough.  It  is  an  ineflable  and  hidden  gift.  What  all 
the  saints  hope  one  day  to  be,  what  the  entire  Church 
expects  to  become  after  the  resurrection,  you  are  already. 
.  .  .  You  are  the  fine  flour  of  the  body  of  the  Church,  and 
her  purest  leaven ;  you  are  the  offering  already  accepted  by 
God,  and  consecrated  upon  His  celestial  altars.^  Christ  is 
already  thy  spouse,  thy  father,  thy  friend,  thy  inheritance, 
thy  ransom,  thy  Lord,  and  thy  God." 

He  warns  her  against  all  intimacy  with  lay  women,  whom 
he  calls  syrens  and  instruments  of  Satan.*  He  condemns 
the  error  of  those  who  believed  they  could  consecrate  their 
virginity  to  God  without  shutting  themselves  up  in  a  monas- 
tery, by  remaining  in  their  families  or  in  isolated  cells,  in 
the  midst  of  cities,  among  all  the  cares  of  domestic  life.^ 

1  She  died  in  603. 

2  De  Institutione  Virginum  et  Contemptu  Mundi,  divided  into  twenty-one 
chapters. 

3  "  Perquirenti  mihi,  soror  carissima,  .  .  .  multas  rerum  fallacium  occnr- 
rebant  imagines,  quas  cum  ut  importunas  muscas  manu  mentis  abigerem. 
.  .  .  Vos  estis  prima  delibatio  corporis  Ecclesise  :  vos  ex  tota  corporis 
massa  6b\&tiones:'—Prcef.  Eegul.  "  Cap.  i.  ^  Q^p.  17. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  9 1 

He  affirms  that  regular  monastic  life  is  identically  conformed 
to  that  which  was  led  by  the  Apostles.  He  reminds  that 
daughter  of  a  noble  race,  that  sister  and  aunt  of  Visigoth 
kings,  of  the  obligations  imposed  upon  her  by  Christian 
equality,  and  directs  her  to  regard  as  her  equals  even  the 
slaves  who,  like  her,  had  assumed  the  veil.  "  Their  birth 
made  them  slaves,  their  profession  has  made  them  thy 
sisters.  Let  nothing  remind  them  of  their  ancient  servi- 
tude. She  who  combats  by  thy  side  for  Christ  under  the 
banner  of  virginity  should  enjoy  a  liberty  equal  to  thine. 
In  accepting  them  for  thy  sisters,  thou  shalt  have  them  so 
much  the  more  for  servants,  that  they  will  obey  thee  not  by 
the  obligation  of  servitude,  but  by  the  freedom  of  charity. 
Not  that  your  humility  should  tempt  them  to  pride. 
Charity  tempers  everything,  and  will  conduct  you  all  to  the 
frontier  of  the  same  peace,  without  exalting  her  who  has 
sacrificed  power,  and  without  humiliating  her  who  was  born 
poor  or  enslaved."  ^  It  is  pleasant  to  find  in  that  great 
mind  the  indications  of  fraternal  affection  and  domestic 
recollections.  "  Seek  not,"  said  he,  playing  upon  the  name 
of  their  mother  Turtur,  who  had  also  ended  her  days  in  the 
cloister,  "  to  steal  away  from  the  roof  where  the  turtle  lays 
her  little  ones.  Thou  art  the  daughter  of  innocence  and 
candour,  thou  who  hast  had  the  turtle-dove  for  thy  mother. 
But  love  still  more  the  Church,  that  other  mystic  turtle- 
dove, who  travails  with  thee  every  day  for  Jesus  Christ. 
Repose  thy  old  age  on  her  bosom,  as  thou  sleptst  of  old 
upon  the  heart  of  her  who  cared  for  thy  infancy.^  .  .  .  Ah, 
well-beloved  sister,  understand  the  ardent  desire  which 
inspires  the  heart  of  thy  brother  to  see  thee  with  Christ. 
.  .  .  Thou  art  the  better  part  of  myself.  Woe  to  me  if 
another    take    thy    crown !       Thou    art   my    bulwark  with 

1  Cap.  12  and  13. 

2  "  Simplicitatis  filia  es  quae  turture  matre  nata  es.  Turturem  pro  matre 
respice.  Turturem  pro  magistra  attende,  et  quae  te  Christo  quotidie  affec- 
tibus  generat,  chariorem  qua  nata  es  matrem  reputa  ...  sit  tibi  dulce 
ejus  gremium  provectas  quod  erat  infantis  gratissimum." — Cap.  21. 


92  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Christ,  my  cherished  pledge,  my  holy  Host,  through  whom 
I  shall  be  worthy  to  issue  out  of  the  abyss  of  my  sins."  ^ 

Florentine  had  yet  another  brother  younger,  but  not  less 
illustrious  than  Leander,  who  loved  her  as  much,  since  he 
has  dedicated  to  her  one  of  the  greatest  monuments  of  his 
genius."  Isidore  was  the  last  born  of  that  high-destined 
family.  Before  succeeding  Leander  upon  the  metropolitan 
see  of  Seville,  he  was  the  pupil  of  his  elder  brother,  who 
loved  him  like  a  son,  but  who  used  him  with  so  much  severity 
that  the  young  Isidore,  fearing  the  energetic  and  frequent 
corrections  of  his  brother,^  fled  one  day  from  the  school  at 
Seville,  After  having  wandered  for  some  time  through  the 
country,  exhausted  by  thirst  and  fatigue,  the  child  seated 
himself  near  a  well,  and  looked  with  curiosity  at  the  hollows 
worn  in  its  edge.  He  asked  himself  who  had  done  that, 
when  a  woman  who  came  to  draw  water  from  the  well,  and 
who  was  greatly  struck  with  the  beauty  and  humble  inno- 
cence of  the  scholar,  explained  to  him  that  the  drops  of 
water  falling  incessantly  on  the  same  spot  had  hollowed  the 
stone.  Then  the  child  returned  into  himself,  and  thought, 
that  if  the  hard  stone  was  hollowed  thus  drop  by  drop  by 
the  water,  his  mind  would  also  yield  to  the  print  of  instruc- 
tion.'* He  returned  accordingly  to  his  brother,  and  com- 
pleted his  education  so  well,  that  he  was  shortly  master  of 
Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  and  became  the  active  fellow- 
labourer  of  Leander  in  the  work  of  Arian  conversion. 

He  lived  long  in  a  cell  where  his  brother  kept  him  shut 

^  "  Senti  fratris  concupiscentiam  velle  te  esse  cum  Christo.  .  .  .  Tu  quae 
pars  melior  nostri  es  corporis.  .  .  .  Tu  apud  Christum  tutamen  meum,  tu, 
charissima,  meum  pignus." — Prafat. 

2  His  treatise  De  Fide  Catholica. 

3  "  Non  parcebat  virgis,  et  laudatus  est  in  illo.  .  .  .  Puerili  permotus 
timore,  verbera  magistri  metuens." — LuCAS  TuDBNSis,  Vit.  S.  hid.,  ap. 
BOLLAND.,  t.  i.  Apr.,  p.  331. 

^  "Aspexit  prtegrande  saxum  tortuosis  foraminibus  perforatum.  .  .  . 
Mulier  super  pulchritudine  pueri  admodum  mirata.  .  .  .  Quis  vel  ad  quid 
lapidis  hujus  foramina.  .  .  .  Et  si  lapis  durissimus  mollis  aquae  frequenti 
instillatione  cavatur,  quanto  magis  ego  homo  ! " — Ihid. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  93 

up  to  prevent  him  from  wandering,  giving  him  the  most 
learned  masters  of  the  time.  It  is  not  absolutely  proved 
that  he  was  a  monk,  though  many  have  maintained  it. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  doubt  it  when  we  read  the  Rule 
which  he  wrote,  in  twenty-three  chapters,  for  the  use  of  the 
Religious  of  his  own  country,  and  which  is  little  more  than 
an  extract  of  the  Benedictine  Rule,  with  which  his  brother 
Leander  had  made  him  familiar. 

Curious  details  upon  the  means  by  which  the  order  re- 
cruited its  ranks  from  the  most  various  classes,  and  the 
lowest  conditions  of  life,  are  to  be  found  here,  as  in  another 
of  his  works  upon  the  Duty  of  the  Monks.  This  information 
is  communicated  to  us  in  wise  and  noble  words,  which 
breathe,  with  more  precision  and  eloquence  than  anywhere 
else,  the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  souls  before  God 
and  the  Church,  but  where  we  also  perceive  the  curb  im- 
posed by  justice  and  reason  on  the  pride  of  the  newly 
emancipated.  "  Our  holy  army,"  says  Isidore,  "  fills  up  its 
ranks  not  only  with  freemen,  but  especially  with  those  of 
servile  condition,  who  come  to  seek  freedom  in  the  cloister. 
Men  come  also  from  rustic  life,  from  laborious  professions, 
from  plebeian  labours,  and  with  so  much  more  advantage  as 
they  are  better  inured  to  labour.  It  would  be  a  serious 
fault  not  to  admit  them."  "  We  must  not  inquire,"  he  adds, 
"  whether  the  novice  be  rich  or  poor,  bond  or  free,  young  or 
old ;  neither  age  nor  condition  matters  among  monks ;  for 
God  has  made  no  difference  between  the  soul  of  the  slave 
and  that  of  the  free  man.  .  .  .  Many  plebeians  have  ex- 
hibited brilliant  virtues,  and  are  worthy  to  be  raised  above 
nobles.  ,  .  .  But  let  not  those  who  come  out  of  poverty  to 
enter  the  cloister  swell  with  pride  to  see  themselves  the 
equals  of  those  who  appeared  to  be  something  in  the  world. 
It  would  be  an  unworthy  thing  if,  where  the  rich,  giving 
up  all  worldly  splendour,  descend  to  humility,  the  poor 
should  allow  themselves  to  rise  into  arrogance.  .  .  .  They 
ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  put  aside  all  vanity,  to  understand 


94  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

humbly  their  new  position,  and  never  to  forget  their  former 
poverty."  ^ 

Monk  or  not,  Isidore  distinguished  himself  by  his  zeal  for 
monastic  interests  when  on  the  death  of  Leander  he  became 
Bishop  of  Seville,  and  the  oracle  of  the  Spanish  Church.^ 
He  presided  at  that  Council  of  Seville  which,  in  619,  pro- 
nounced the  anathema  against  bishops  or  priests  who  should 
attempt  to  disturb  or  despoil  the  monasteries.^ 

During  the  forty  years  of  his  episcopate,  his  knowledge, 
zeal,  and  authority  consolidated  the  happy  revolution  and 
relio-ious  and  literary  revival  of  which  his  brother  had  been 
the  chief  author.  He  completed  the  destruction  of  Arianism, 
stifled  the  new  heresy  of  the  Acephales,  continued,  strength- 
ened, and  enriched  the  vast  educational  work  of  which  Seville 
was  the  centre,  and  which,  by  means  of  the  fourth  Council  of 
Toledo,  he  extended  to  all  the  Episcopal  Churches  of  Spain, 
prescribing  everywhere  the  study  of  Greek  and  Hebrew.  He 
was,  besides,  the  compiler  of  that  Spanish  liturgy  so  poetic 
and  imposing,  which,  under  the  name  of  Mozarabic,  survived 
the  ruin  of  the  Visigoth  Church,  and  was  worthy  of  being 
resuscitated  by  the  great  Ximenes. 

A  fertile  writer,  unwearied  and  profoundly  learned,  he 
wrote,  among  many  other  works,  a  history  of  the  Goths,  their 
conquests  and  government   in  Spain.      He   made  Aristotle 

1  "Veniunt  non  solum  liberi,  sed  plerumque  ex  conditione  servili  vel 
propter  hoc  potius  liberandi.  Veniunt  quoque  ex  vita  rustica,  et  ex  opi- 
ficum  exercitatione,  .  .  .  et  ex  plebeio  labore,  tanto  utique  felicius, 
quanto  fortius  educati."— S.  ISIDOKI,  De  Offic.  Eccles.,  c.  15  ;  2)e  Monach., 
c.  5.  "Quia  inter  servi  et  liberi  animam  nulla  est  apud  Deum  differ- 
entia. .  .  .  Non  extoUantur  in  superbiam,  quia  se  ibi  asquales  aspiciunt 
iis  qui  aliquid  in  sseculo  videhant\iT."—Eegula,  c.  4.  Finally  Isidore  pro- 
hibited, in  his  rule,  the  reception  into  the  monastery  of  slaves  whom  their 
masters  had  not  set  free. 

2  Compare  BOLLAND.,  loc.  ciL,  and  Mabillon,  Act.  SS.  0.  B.  smc.  ii.  in 
Prcetermissis.  "Monastici  quoque  instituti  per  Hispaniam  promotor,  et 
amplificator  eximius,  plura  construxit  monasteria." — Offic.  Sanctorum  in 
Brev.  Rom.  ad  usum  Hispanice,  Matr.  1678,  die  4  April. 

3  Can.  X.  ;  ap.  COLETTI,  ConcU.,  t.  v.  p.  1407. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  95 

known  to  the  new  nations  of  the  West  long  before  the 
Arabs  came  to  bring  him  again  into  fashion.  He  has 
preserved  to  us  a  multitude  of  classical  fragments  which 
without  his  care  would  have  perished  for  ever,  by  condens- 
ing all  the  knowledge  of  antiquity  and  of  his  own  time, 
the  seven  liberal  arts,  philological  tradition,  medicine,  law, 
natural  history,  geography,  and  even  the  mechanical  arts,  in 
that  vast  encyclopedia  which,  under  the  name  of  a  treatise  on 
Etymology  or  on  The  Origin  of  Things,  was,  with  the  analogous 
work  of  the  monk  Cassiodorus,  the  school  manual  of  the  middle 
ages.'^  It  has  been  said  of  him  with  justice  that  he  was  the 
last  philosopher  of  the  ancient  world,"  and  the  first  Christian 
who  arranged  for  Christians  the  knowledge  of  antiquity. 

Isidore  died  in  636  ;  but  the  light  which  he  had  thrown 
in  floods  upon  Spain  and  the  Church  was  not  extinguished 
with  him.  He  had  numerous  disciples,  of  whom  St.  Ilde- 
fonso  was  the  most  illustrious,  but  among  whom  we  must 
name,  in  passing,  Braulius,  Bishop  of  Saragossa,  who  has 
been  characterised  as  the  most  eloquent  writer  of  Gothic 
Spain  ;  and  King  Sisebut,  a  learned  prince,  who  had  a 
double  merit,  according  to  a  Benedictine  historian,  in  his 
love  for  literature,  as  being  at  once  a  king  and  a  Goth.^ 

Most  of  the  Visigoth  kings  distinguished  themselves  by 
their  liberality  towards  monasteries.  The  only  authentic 
charter  which  remains  of  the  Visigothic  period,  is  a  dona- 
tion made  in  646,  by  King  Chindaswinde,  to  the  monastery 
of  Corapludo.  This  charter  is  signed  by  the  king,  by  the 
queen  Reciberga,  by  St.  Eugene,  Archbishop  of  Toledo, 
and  two  other  bishops,  by  five  counts,  and  four  abbots, 
among  whom  we  remark  the  name  of  Ildefonso,  destined 
to  the  highest  honour.*      But  the  great  number  of  similar 

1  OzANAM,  La  Civilisation  Chritienne  chez  les  Francs,  c.  9. 

2  CUVIEE. 

'  "  Lo  que  es  mucho  para  aquello  tiempo  que  siendo  Key  et  Godo,  se 
aplicava  las  letras." — Yepes,  Cent.  Secund.,  p.  48. 

■*  Yepes,  Coronica  General  del  Orden  de  S.  Benoit,  vol.  ii.  p.  174,  and 
Append.,  Esritura  13. 


g6  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

donations  is  proved  by  the  general  and  official  formula  on 
which  these  acts  were  modelled,  and  which  French  erudition 
has  lately  brought  to  light.  The  king  who  would  found  or 
endow  a  community  addressed  himself  to  the  saint  whose 
relics  were  to  be  placed  in  the  new  church,  and  spoke  a 
language  which  seems  to  make  even  these  legal  forms  pal- 
pitate with  the  ardent  breath  of  Spanish  faith.  "  Glorious 
lord  and  happy  conqueror,"  he  is  made  to  say,  "we  have 
decreed  that  henceforth,  in  the  place  where  the  treasure  of 
your  sacred  body  reposes,  there  should  be  a  congregation  of 
monks,  destined  to  serve  God  and  honour  your  memory, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  Fathers,  who  have  estab- 
lished the  rule  of  monastic  life.  We  offer  to  your  glorious 
memory  such  and  such  a  portion  of  our  patrimony  to  sup- 
port the  church  and  its  light,  its  incense  and  its  sacrifices, 
to  supply  the  regulated  food  and  clothing  of  the  monks,  the 
help  of  the  poor,  and  that  travellers  may  be  received  there. 
.  .  .  We  will  that  this  donation,  made  to  efface  our  sins, 
should  be  perpetual ;  that  neither  priest  nor  prelate  may 
have  power  to  alienate  it.  We  warn  future  abbots,  in  cen- 
turies to  come,  not  to  dissolve,  by  carelessness  or  irregu- 
larity, the  bond  which  we  here  form.  And  you  who  shall 
reign  after  us,  we  adjure  you  by  the  empire  of  the  eternal  God 
(and  may  God  deign  to  preserve  the  nation  and  kingdom  of 
the  Goths  to  the  end  of  the  world  !)  take  heed  that  nothing 
is  taken  away  or  mutilated  in  these  oblations,  by  which  we 
would  propitiate  God  for  our  own  salvation,  and  that  of  all 
the  Goths !  Glorious  martyr,  accept  this  gift,  and  present 
it  before  God."  ^  In  this  formula,  as  in  the  Charter  of 
Compludo,  appear  already  those  formidable  imprecations,  so 
universal  during  the  middle  ages,  against  the  violators  and 

^  "  Formula  quam  facit  rex  qui  Ecclesiam  cedijicans  monasterium  facere 
voluerit. — Domino  glorioso  et  triumphatori  beatissimo.  .  .  .  Juxta  Patrum 
more  (sic)  qui  monachis  normam  vitse  posuerunt.  .  .  .  Per  Eetates  succiduas 
futures  prremoneinus  abbates.  .  .  .  Per  asterni  regis  imperium  (sic  Deus 
Gothorum  gentem  et  rcgnum  usque  in  finem  s^culi  conservare  dignetur  !) 
,  .  ," — E,  DB  Bozi^RB,  Formules  Visigothiques  Inddites,  No.  9,  1854. 


ST.  GKEGORY  THE  GREAT  97 

robbers  of  holy  things,  which  threaten  them  with  the  fate 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  which  assign  them  a  place  in 
hell  beside  Dathan,  Abiram,  and  Judas  Iscariot. 

The  development  of  the  monastic  institution  kept  pace 
with  that  of  literature  and  Christian  piety,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  great  doctors  produced  by  monastic  life  in  Spain. 
St.  Ildefonso,  who  signed  the  Charter  of  Compludo,  in  whom 
Leander  and  Isidore  seemed  to  live  again,  and  who  was  the 
most  popular  of  the  Spanish  saints,  issued  like  them  from 
the  famous  school  of  Seville  :  but  he  was  also  connected 
with  another  centre  of  knowledge  and  ecclesiastical  educa- 
tion created  by  the  monastic  spirit.  At  the  gates  of  Toledo, 
which,  since  the  union  of  the  whole  territory  of  Spain  under 
the  sceptre  of  the  Visigoth  kings,  had  replaced  Seville  as 
the  capital  of  the  Visigoth  kingdom,  rose  the  monastery  of 
Agali,  founded  in  the  sixth  century.  In  the  following  age, 
it  was  a  nursery  of  saints  and  doctors,  and  the  most  cele- 
brated abbey  of  the  Peninsula.  Six  metropolitan  bishops 
of  Toledo  ^  came  from  it  in  succession,  and  among  them 
Helladius,  a  young  lord  of  the  first  nobility,  the  friend 
and  fellow-student  of  Leander,  who,  like  him,  early  re- 
nounced the  world,  and  had  lived  long  at  Agali,  in  com- 
panionship with  the  Keligious,  and  was  pleased  to  be 
employed  in  carrying  faggots  to  the  abbatial  oven,^  before 
he  himself  became  a  monk.  When  he  became  bishop 
after  having  been  abbot  of  the  monastery,  he  instituted 
the  great  school  which  his  successors  vied  with  each  other 
in  developing. 

1  Aurasius,  died  in  614  ;  Helladius,  died  in  632  ;  St.  Just,  who  presided 
with  St.  Isidore  at  the  fourth  Council  of  Toledo,  died  in  635  ;  Eugene  II., 
a  monk  from  infancy,  presided  at  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  Councils  of 
Toledo,  and  died  in  646  ;  Eugene  III.,  who  was  the  most  distinguished 
poet  of  Gothic  Spain  (v.  Boukeet,  op.  citat.),  presided  at  the  eighth,  ninth, 
and  tenth  Councils  of  Toledo,  and  died  in  658  ;  lastly,  Ildefonso,  nephew 
of  the  preceding,  died  in  667.  The  three  first  and  Ildefonso  were  not  only 
monks,  but  abbots  of  Agali. 

2  S.  HiLBEPHONS.,  De  Virlb.  Illustr.,  c.  7. 

VOL.  II.  G 


98  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Ildefonso,  born  at  Toledo,  of  a  family  allied  to  the  blood- 
royal,  received  at  first  in  Seville,  for  twelve  years,  the  instruc- 
tions of  Isidore,  and  then,  returning  to  his  own  birth-place, 
despite  the  violent  opposition  of  his  family,  became  a  monk 
at  Agali.  Another  kind  of  violence,  that  of  the  unanimous 
voice  of  the  people  and  clergy  of  Toledo,  was  needed  to 
draw  him  from  thence,  and  place  him  upon  the  metropolitan 
see.  He  too  cultivated  history  and  poetry  with  success  ;  his 
ascetic  writings  take  an  honourable  place  in  the  religious 
literature  of  the  time.  But  it  was  his  ardent  devotion  to 
the  holy  Virgin,  whose  perpetual  virginity  he  defended 
against  the  heresy  of  the  Helvidians,  which  gained  him  the 
first  place  in  the  love  and  memory  of  the  Spanish  people. 
The  miraculous  visions  which  testified  the  gratitude  of 
Mary  for  the  efforts  of  his  defending  zeal,^  and  the  relics  of 
them  which  he  left  to  the  church  of  Toledo,  after  having 
warmed  the  devotion  of  the  Spaniards  for  their  great  saint 
Alonzo,  received,  a  thousand  years  after  his  death,  a  new 
consecration  from  the  genius  of  Calderon.^ 

Leander,  Isidore,  and  Ildefonso  were  the  illustrious  repre- 
sentatives of  intellectual  life  in  a  time  from  which  it  had 
almost  everywhere  disappeared.  These  laborious,  learned, 
and  eloquent  ecclesiastics,  full  of  zeal  for  knowledge  and 
study,  as  well  as  for  religion,  secured  in  Spain  the  future 
existence  of  Christian  literature  and  literary  traditions, 
which  were  everywhere  else  interrupted,  or  threatened  by 
the  storms  of  invasion,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Bar- 

'  During  the  night  of  the  feast  of  the  Expcctatio  Partus  B.  M.  V.,  St. 
Leocadia,  whose  relics  he  had  discovered,  appeared  to  him  and  said,  "  O 
Ildefonse  !  per  te  vivit  Domina  mea,  qute  coeli  culmina  tenet."  In  order 
to  secure  a  palpable  token  of  this  vision,  he  seized  the  sword  of  King 
Receswinth,  who  accompanied  him,  and  cut  off  a  portion  of  the  veil  of  the 
saint,  which  afterwards  became  a  much  venerated  relic. — Breviar.  Roman, 
in  prop.  Cleri  Romani,  ad  23  Janiiar.  Another  night,  he  saw  the  holy  Virgin 
herself  seated  on  the  episcopal  throne,  in  the  apse  of  his  cathedral,  which 
was  illuminated  by  that  presence,  and  on  which  he  never  afterwards  ven- 
tured to  seat  himself. 

2  See  the  drama,  by  Calderon,  entitled  La  Virgen  del  Sacrurio. 


ST.  GEEGORY  THE  GREAT  99 

barians.  They  made  their  country  the  intellectual  light  of 
the  Christian  world  in  the  seventh  century. 

After  them  come  all  the  admirable  bishops  and  monks, 
issued  from  the  blood  or  spiritual  family  of  these  three 
great  men,  who  were,  as  they  themselves  had  been,  the  soul 
of  the  famous  Councils  of  Toledo.  It  is  well  known  that 
these  councils  were  the  strength  and  glory  of  Gothic  Spain  ; 
and  that  out  of  their  bosom  came,  purified  by  the  sacerdotal 
spirit,  that  Visigothic  legislation  which  modern  knowledge 
has  nobly  vindicated,'^  and  placed  in  the  first  rank  of  the 
laws  of  ancient  Christendom,  for  the  boldness,  depth,  and 
equity  of  its  views. 

Leander  and  Isidore,  the  two  illustrious  brothers,  gave  to 
these  assemblies  the  political  and  legislative  character  which 
they  retained  for  a  century,  and  which  has  fixed  upon  them 
the    special    attention    of    historians.^      Doubtless,    in    the 

^  GUIZOT,  Hist,  de  la  Civilisation,  vol.  i. ;  Hist,  des  Origiiics  du  Gouverne- 
ment  Reprisentatif,  \eq.  25,  and  Revue  Fran^aise  of  November  1828. 

^  The  following  is  the  chronological  list  of  the  Councils  which  were 
held  at  Toledo  from  the  conversion  of  the  Visigoths  to  the  conquest  of 
Spain  by  the  Moors.  (Those  nmnbered  First  and  Second  are  previous, 
and  date,  the  first  400,  and  the  second  531.) 

The  Third,  in  589,  composed  of  65  bishops,  presided  over  by  Leander, 
published  23  decrees  or  canons. 

Two  Councils  held  in  597  and  610,  the  decrees  of  which  were  first  pub- 
lished by  Garcia  Loasia  in  the  sixteenth  century,  have  not  been  comprised 
in  the  ordinary  numeration,  so  as  not  to  disarrange  the  traditional  order. 

The  Fourth,  in  633  :  62  bishops  ;  75  canons.     St.  Isidore  signs  first. 

The  Fifth,  in  636  :  20  bishops  ;  9  canons. 

The  Sixth,  in  638  :  52  bishops  ;   19  canons. 

The  Seventh,  in  646  :  28  bishops  ;  6  canons. 

The  Eighth,  in  653  :  52  bishops  ;  10  abbots,  among  whom  was  Ildefonso, 
abbot  of  Agali  ;  12  canons. 

The  Ninth,  in  655  :  16  bishops;  6  abbots,  among  them  Ildefonso;  17 
canons. 

The  Tenth,  in  656  :  20  bishops,  among  them  the  monk  St.  Fructueux, 
Archbishop  of  Braga,  of  whom  we  shall  speak  hereafter  ;  7  canons. 

The  Eleventh,  in  675  :   19  bishops,  6  abbots  ;  16  canons. 

The  Twelfth,  in  681  :  35  bishops,  4  abbots  ;  13  canons. 

The  Thirteenth,  in  683  :  48  bishops,  5  abbots  ;  13  canons. 

The  Fourteenth,  in  684  :  17  bishops,  6  abbots  ;  12  canons. 


lOO  ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

eighteen  assemblies  held  at  Toledo,  from  the  conversion  of 
the  Visigoths  to  the  conquest  of  Spain  by  the  Moors,  religious 
matters  always  occupied  the  first  place.  Questions  touching 
doctrine,  ecclesiastical  hierarchy,  and  discipline,  the  inde- 
pendence and  regularity  of  monasteries,^  the  general  and 
detailed  aspect  of  spiritual  interests,  formed  the  subject  of 
most  of  the  decisions  issued  by  these  Councils.  Doubtless, 
also,  the  bishops  played  a  preponderating  part,  by  number  as 
by  authority.  But  lords  and  lay  dignitaries  figured  there 
also:  entering  the  first  time  with  the  king,  who  almost 
always  took  the  initiative  as  regards  questions  which  were 
to  be  dealt  with,  these  laymen  withdrew  with  him  ;  but  after 
having  left  the  bishops  three  days  to  discuss  spiritual  affairs 
alone,  they  returned  to  take  part  in  the  final  deliberations. 
They  were  there  by  virtue  of  a  recognised  right:  they 
signed  the  decrees  like  the  bishops.  Besides,  the  consent 
of  what  was  then  called  the  people — that  is,  of  all  the 
military  nobility  of  the  Gothic  nation — seems  to  have  been 
often  asked  and  expressed  to  give  validity  to  the  decisions 
of  the  king,  the  bishops,  and  the  proceres? 

The  Fifteenth,  in  688  :  6i  bishops,  8  abbots. 

The  Sixteenth,  in  693  :  59  bishops,  5  abbots  ;  13  canons. 

The  Seventeenth,  in  694  :  8  canons  ;  no  signatures. 

The  Eighteenth,  and  last,  in  701. 

Many  of  these  bishops  proceeded  from  the  monastic  order,  or  ended 
their  dajs  in  it.— Yepes,  Cent.  Secund.  This  collection  includes,  besides, 
the  signatures  of  proxies  of  absent  bishops,  and  those  of  a  crowd  of  counts 
and  lay  proceres. 

1  The  Fourth,  held  in  633,  under  the  presidency  of  Isidore,  showed  itself 
especially  zealous  for  the  liberty  of  the  monks,  guaranteeing  to  priests  the 
liberty  of  embracing  monastic  life,  interdicting  bishops  from  all  molesta- 
tion or  usurpation  injurious  to  the  monasteries,  and  prohibiting  the  return 
to  the  world  of  all  professed  monks. 

The  Ninth,  held  in  655,  saw  the  necessity  of  putting  a  curb  on  the 
munificence  of  bishops  towards  monasteries,  by  prohibiting  them  from 
disposing  of  more  than  a  fiftieth  of  the  episcopal  patrimony  in  favour  of 
these  foundations. 

"^  See  Councils  Eighth,  Fourteenth,  Sixteenth,  but  especially  the  canon 
of  the  Fourth,  in  633,  which  renders  valid  the  deposition  of  Swinthila, 
aftei-  Jiaving  taken  the  advice  of  the  nation. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  lOI 

Thus  constituted,  these  memorable  assemblies  exercised 
power,  spiritual  and  temporal,  political  and  civil,  legislative 
land  judiciary,  in  all  its  fulness  :  all  the  great  affairs  of  the 
^kingdom  were  discussed  there ;  and  this  kingdom  embraced 
iQot  only  the  whole  of  Spain,  which  the  Visigoths  had  suc- 
•3eeded  in  purging  from  the  last  vestiges  of  Greco-Roman 
power,  but  also  the  Narbonnaise,  the  bishops  of  which  took 
bheir  places  at  Toledo  with  those  of  the  Peninsula.  They 
Qiade  laws  and  kings.  They  regulated  the  conditions  of 
:he  elective  monarchy,  too  often  ignored  in  practice  by  the 
sanguinary  violence  of  pretenders,  or  of  successors  designated 
:o  the  throne.  And  although  the  accomplished  acts  which 
bhey  found  it  best  to  sanction  had  too  often  substituted 
nolence  for  right,  they  always  condemned  in  principle  every 
candidate  whose  claims  were  not  founded  on  an  election  by 
the  nobility  and  clergy,  upon  the  purity  of  his  Gothic  origin, 
and  the  uprightness  of  his  character.^ 

After  having  established  that  the  king  was  only  the 
representative  and  delegate  of  the  people,  they  seem  to 
bave  accorded  to  him  a  kind  of  counter-advantage,  by 
attributing  to  his  authority  a  fulness  which  contrasts  with 
the  limitations  imposed  upon  their  princes  by  the  traditional 
freedom  of  the  Germanic  races,  who  were  best  acquainted 
with  the  means  of  recognising  at  once  the  rights  of  blood, 
and  restraining  the  exercise  of  power.  But  never,  it  must 
be  acknowledged,  has  the  sovereign  power  been  addressed 
in  language  more  noble  than  that  of  the  fourth  Council  of 
Toledo,  speaking  by  the  mouth  of  Isidore  and  his  colleagues 
to  King  Sisenand  and  his  successors.  "  You  who  are 
actually  king,   and  all  you,  the  princes  of  the  future,  we 

^  "Defuncto  in  pace  principe,  primates  totius  gentis  cum  sacerdotibus 
successorem  regni  communi  concilio  constituant."  —  Cone.  iv.  can.  74. 
■'  Quern  nee  electio  omnium  provehit,  nee  Gothicae  gentis  nobilitas  ad 
aunc  honoris  apicem  trahit,  sit  .  .  .  anathemati  condemnatus." — Cone.  v. 
;aw.  3.  "  Nullus  sub  religionis  habitu  detonsus  .  .  .  servilem  originem 
■jahens,  vel  extranese  gentis  homo,  nisi  genere  et  moribus  dignus." — Cone. 
Kvi.  can.  17. 


102  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

humbly  adjure  you  to  be  gentle  and  moderate  towards  your 
subjects,  to  govern  with  justice  and  piety  the  nations  which 
God  has  confided  to  you,  and  thus  to  pay  your  debt  to 
Christ  who  has  made  you  kings.  Let  none  among  you 
decide  by  himself  in  causes  which  concern  life  or  property, 
but  let  the  crime  of  the  accused  be  proved  in  a  public  sitting 
with  the  chiefs  of  the  people,  and  by  an  open  judgment. 
Be  gentle  even  in  your  severity :  by  means  of  such  modera- 
tion the  kings  will  be  content  with  the  people,  the  people 
with  the  kings,  and  God  with  both.  As  for  the  future 
kings,  this  is  the  sentence  we  publish  concerning  them.  If 
any  one  among  them,  in  opposition  to  the  laws,  for  pride  or 
royal  pomp,  or  covetousness,  oppresses  or  vexes  his  people, 
may  he  be  accursed  by  the  Lord  Christ,  aud  for  ever  sepa- 
rated from  God  !  "  ^ 

But  the  kings,  who  listened  humbly  to  such  lessons,  prac- 
tised them  little.  The  councils  were  not  the  less  obliged  to 
interfere  energetically  in  order  to  repress  the  rapacity  of 
the  kings,  and  the  subaltern  insolence  of  certain  oflQcers 
drawn  by  them  from  the  servile  classes.  "  When,"  said  the 
Fathers  of  the  eighth  council,  held  in  653,  at  which  the 
monk  Eugenius  presided  as  Bishop  of  Toledo,  and  where 
Ildefonso  already  sat  as  abbot  of  Agali,  "  when  in  time  past 
the  frightful  avidity  of  the  princes  has  thrown  itself  upon 
the  goods  of  the  people,  and  wildly  sought  to  increase  its 
wealth  by  the  tears  of  its  subjects,  we  have  been  inspired 
by  a  breath  from  on  high,  after  having  granted  to  the  sub- 
jects laws  of  respectful  obedience,  to  put  a  check  also  upon 
the   excesses   of  the   princes."  ^      And   the    Fathers  of  the 

^  "Te  quoque  pr^sentem  regem  futurosque  sequentium  ^tatum  prin- 
cipes.  .  .  .  Ne  quisquam  vestrum  solus  in  caussis  capitum  aut  rerum 
sententiam  ferat,  sed  consensu  publico  cum  rectoribus.  ...  Si  quis  ex  eis 
contra  reverentiam  legum  superba  dominatione  et  fastu  regio  .  .  .  cru- 
delissimam  potestatem  in  populo  exercuerit." — Cone.  iv.  can.  75. 

-  "  Cum  immoderatior  aviditas  principum  sese  prona  diffunderet  in 
spoliis  populorum  .  .  .  nobis  est  divinitus  inspiratum  ut,  quia  subjectis 
leges  reverentiffi  dederamus,  principum  quoque  excessus  retinaculum 
temperantiae  poneremus." — Condi,  viii.,  ap.  Coletti,  t.  viii.  p.  428. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT  I03 

thirteenth  council,  in  683,  decreed  as  follows:  "We  know- 
that  many  slaves  and  freedmen,  raised  by  order  of  the  king 
to  palatine  offices,  and  affecting  to  arrogate  to  themselves  a 
power  which  the  baseness  of  their  origin  interdicts,  having 
become  by  their  new  dignity  the  equals  of  their  lords,  have 
made  themselves  the  murderers  of  their  former  masters,  even 
of  those  who  gave  them  their  freedom.  Therefore,  from 
this  time,  we  debar  any  serf  or  freedman  (except  those  of 
the  treasury)  from  admission  into  a  palatine  office." 

Unhappily,  the  efforts  of  these  assemblies  to  restrain  the 
excesses  of  the  princes  and  their  servants  lacked,  like  those 
of  the  nobles  and  clergy,  a  lasting  guarantee  and  sanction. 
The  Goths  of  Spain,  permitting  the  Roman  spirit  and 
manners  to  gain  too  rapid  a  sway  over  them,  gradually  lost 
the  traditions  of  Germanic  institutions  and  liberties.  Un- 
accustomed to  those  assemblies  of  free  men  and  that  practice 
of  military  virtue  which  were  always  kept  up  among  the 
Franks,  they  knew  no  way  of  establishing  the  necessary 
counterpoise  to  the  violence  of  the  kings,  which  ended  by 
overthrowing  the  monarchy  of  the  Visigoths  under  the 
sword  of  the  Arabs. 

We  can  still  recognise  in  their  ceaseless  but  always  im- 
potent decrees  against  the  Jews,  whom  they  baptized  by 
force,  and  furiously  pursued  even  into  private  and  domestic 
life,  that  implacable  character  of  Spanish  religion  which, 
two  centuries  before,  had  disgusted  the  great  soul  of  St. 
Martin  against  the  persecutors  of  the  Priscillianists,^  and 
which  has  almost  always  failed  of  its  aim  by  exceeding  it, 
as  is  proved  by  the  important  part,  more  important  here 
than  anywhere  else,  played  by  Jews,  and  even  by  Jewesses, 
in  the  history  of  the  middle  ages  in  Spain.  By  a  deplorable 
inconsistency,  these  pitiless  measures  had  been  preceded  by 
the  example  of  the  persuasions  employed  unaided  by  King 
Eecarede  in  the  conversion  of  the  Arian  priests,^  by  the 

1  Concil.  iii.  Tolet,  can.  6,  ap.  Coletti,  t.  vii.  1471. 

2  See  above,  vol.  i.  p.  342.  ^  See  above,  vol.  ii.  p.  87. 


I04  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

formal  censure  of  St.  Isidore  against  the  proselytising  fana- 
ticism of  the  Visigoth  kings,  and  by  that  deliverance  of 
the  Council  of  633,  which  breathes  the  intelligent  tolera- 
tion of  victorious  Christianity :  "  None  can  be  saved  who  do 
not  desire  it.  As  man  fell  by  listening  of  his  own  will  to 
the  serpent,  so,  upon  the  call  of  divine  grace,  man  is  saved, 
and  believes  only  by  the  voluntary  conversion  of  his  own 
soul.  It  is  not  by  force  but  by  free  will  that  they  can  be 
persuaded  to  conversion."  ^ 

It  is  well  known,  besides,  that  most  of  the  laws  passed  by 
the  Council  of  Toledo  concerning  political  affairs  are  em- 
bodied in  that  celebrated  code,  which,  under  the  name  of 
Liber  or  Forum  Judicum  (in  the  Castilian  language,  Fuero 
Juczgo),  is  the  principal  basis  of  Spanish  legislation,  and  one 
of  the  most  curious  monuments  of  the  legislative  history  of 
Christian  nations.  St.  Isidore  is  believed  to  have  been  the 
first  compiler  of  this  record,  in  which  the  kings  and  bishops 
successively  entered,  along  with  the  decrees  of  the  councils, 
the  ancient  Gothic  customs,  and  some  fragments  of  Roman 
law.^  It  was  reviewed  and  arranged  by  order  of  King 
Egica  in  the  sixteenth  Council  of  Toledo,  in  693.  This 
code  survived  Gothic  Spain ;  through  all  the  wretchedness 
of  the  Arab  conquest,  and  the  heroic  struggle  of  the  Spanish 
race  against  Islamism,  its  spirit  continued  to  animate  the 
princes  and  assemblies,  and  its  luminous  trace  through 
history  has  always  aided  Spanish  patriotism  in  recalling  its 
Christian  origin. 

^  "  De  Judaeis  hoc  prsecepit  sancta  synodus  :  nemini  deinceps  ad  creden- 
dum  vim  inferre.  .  .  .  Non  enim  tales  inviti  salvandi  sunt,  sed  volentes  : 
sicut  enim  homo,  etc.  .  .  .  Ergo  non  vi,  sed  libera  arbitrii  facultate,  ut 
convertantur  suadendi  sunt,  non  potius  impellendi." — Concil.  Toletan.  iv., 
can.  57.  But  immediately  after,  it  must  be  confessed,  it  is  added  that 
those  who  had  been  forced  to  become  Christians  in  the  time  of  King 
Sisebut  should  be  obliged  to  remain  such,  for  this  very  doubtful  reason  : 
"Oportet  ut  fidem  etiam,  quam  vi  et  necessitate  susceperunt,  tenere 
cogantur,  ne  nomen  divinum  blasphemetur,  et  fides  quam  susceperunt  vilis 
ac  contemptibilis  habeatur  I  " 

^  AeevaLO,  Isidoriana,  c.  92. 


ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT  I05 

The  influence  of  the  clergy  is  visible  in  the  didactic  style 
of  its  language,  and  still  moi-e  in  the  general  spirit  of  equity 
which  has  dictated  its  principal  regulations,  in  the  guaran- 
tees granted  to  slaves,  but  especially  in  the  penalties,  which, 
different  from  all  other  Barbarian  codes,  attempt  to  propor- 
tion punishment,  not  to  the  material  injury  done  or  to  the 
rank  of  the  culprit,  but  to  the  morality  of  the  act.^  The 
fusion  of  the  two  races,  conquering  and  conquered,  is  also 
made  apparent  by  the  absence  of  all  those  distinctions  of 
right  or  penalty  which,  in  the  laws  of  other  Germanic 
nations,  marked  the  different  origin  of  races  which  in- 
habited the  same  country.  There  is  good  reason  for 
regretting  that  this  celebrated  code  was  written  during 
an  age  in  which  the  primitive  genius  of  the  Goths  was 
weakened,  and  in  which  Roman  civilisation  had  too  much 
effaced  the  strong  individuality  of  Germanic  institutions 
and  national  customs.^  But  the  old  law  of  the  Germans 
may  yet  be  found  in  the  theory  of  royal  rights,  which 
recognises  no  other  legitimate  title  of  power  than  that 
which  results  from  the  morality  and  justice  of  its  possessors. 
We  shall  see  that  theory  retain  all  its  force  amid  the  great 
struggles  between  the  priesthood  and  the  empire,  and  shall 
hear,  even  in  the  times  of  Gregory  VIL,  the  voice  of  the 
bishops  and  monks  apply  against  the  emperors  the  axiom 
which  the  Visigothic  code  had  set  forth  so  energetically  : 
"  Rex  eris,  si  recU  fads  :  si  auiem  non  facts,  rex  non  eris." 

In  680  the  bishops  made  a  singular  use  of  this  right  of 
deposition,  in  the  case  of  the  old  king  Wamba,  who,  after  a 
glorious  reign,  being  sick  and  poisoned  by  a  Greek,  had  re- 
ceived the  monastic  habit  and  tonsure  from  the  hands  of 
the  archbishop  while  he  was  supposed  to  be  in  extremity, 
according  to  a  pious  custom  of  the  time,  habitual  to  those 
who  desired  to  make  a  public  repentance  before  dying. 
When  he  came  to  himself,  he  thought  himself  obliged  to 

^  Albert  Du  Boys,  Histoire  du  Droit  CrimimJ  dcs  Peuples  Europiens. 
2  E.  DE  ROZIERE,  Formules  Visic/othiques,  Introd. 


I06  ST.    GREGORY   THE    GREAT 

ratify  the  vow  which  he  had  appeared  to  make/  and  named 
as  his  successor  Count  Erwige,  the  son  of  the  man  who  had 
poisoned  him.  He  entered  into  a  monastery,  and  lived 
there  seven  years,  in  holy  obedience  to  his  new  duties ;  in 
the  meantime,  the  bishops,  met  in  the  twelfth  Council  of 
Toledo,  relieved  his  subjects  from  their  oaths  of  fidelity,  and 
anathematised  the  enemies  of  the  new  king.  They  after- 
wards decreed  a  canon  which  took  into  consideration  the 
case  of  those  who,  having  desired  the  penitence  (that  is,  the 
tonsure  and  monastic  habit)  while  they  were  in  good  health, 
and  having  received  it  without  asking  it  during  their  illness, 
were  desirous  of  returning  to  military  life  under  pretence 
that  they  could  not  be  bound  by  a  vow  which  they  had  not 
made ;  their  return  is  formally  interdicted,  because  they  are 
regarded  as  pledged,  like  children  who  have  received  baptism 
without  being  conscious  of  it.  But  the  same  canon  forbids 
bishops  to  give  the  penitence  to  those  who  do  not  ask  it, 
under  pain  of  a  year's  excommunication,^  Everything  is 
obscure  and  strange  in  this  history,  which,  nevertheless,  is 
too  closely  connected  with  monastic  annals  to  be  passed  in 
silence.  This,  however,  was  not  the  first  time  that  kings  had 
been  obliged  to  become  monks  in  Spain ;  a  century  before, 
one  of  the  last  kings  of  the  Sueves  had  been  made  a  monk 
against  his  will  by  a  usurper :  and  the  latter  had  been  im- 
mediately after  attacked  and  overcome  by  Leovigild,  who 
forced  him,  in  his  turn,  to  enter  the  cloister,  and  added  the 
kingdom  of  the  Sueves  to  that  of  the  Visigoths.  But  Leovi- 
gild was  an  Arian  persecutor,  and  an  orthodox  council  might 
have  found  better  examples.^ 

1  "  Sive,"  says  Mariana  [De  Reh.  Hisp.,  vi.  14),  "animi  magnitudine  rursus 
spernentis,  quae  alii  per  ignes  ferrumque  petunt ;  sive  desperatione  regnum 
recuperandi,  cum  Erwigius  rerum  potiretur." 

2  Can.  2. 

*  If  a  French  historian  is  to  be  believed,  another  king  of  the  Goths,  the 
young  Tolga,  after  two  years'  reign,  v^as  deposed  by  an  insurrection  of  the 
nobility,  in  642,  and  forced  to  become  a  monk.  "  Tolganam  degradatum 
ad  honorem  clericati  fecit." — Fredegak,  c.  82. 


ST.    GREGORY    THE   GREAT  IO7 

In  this  very  country  of  the  Sueves,  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  seventh  century,  the  true  monastic  spirit  shed  all 
its  lustre  in  the  person  of  St.  Fructuosus.  "  God  created  at 
this  time,"  says  a  contemporary  monk,  "  two  great  suns  to 
light  these  western  shores  with  the  rays  of  that  flaming 
truth  which  shone  from  the  Apostolic  See  :  the  one,  Isidore 
of  Seville,  relighted  among  us,  by  his  eloquence,  his  writings, 
his  wisdom,  and  active  industry,  the  great  light  of  dogmatic 
truth  issued  by  the  supreme  chair  of  Eome ;  the  other, 
Fructuosus,  by  the  immaculate  innocence  of  his  life,  by 
the  spiritual  fire  of  his  contemplations,  made  the  virtues  of 
the  first  Fathers  of  the  desert,  and  the  prodigies  of  the  The- 
baid,  shine  into  our  hearts."^  Issued  from  the  blood-royal, 
,  and  son  of  a  general  of  the  Gothic  army,  the  young  Fruc- 
tuosus, when  taken  by  his  father  into  one  of  his  estates  upon 
the  frontiers  of  Galicia  to  take  account  of  his  flocks,  secretly 
noted  in  his  soul  a  site  for  a  future  monastery  in  that  wild 
country.  His  parents  being  dead,  he  withdrew,  after  having 
studied  humane  and  sacred  literature  at  Palencia,  into  the 
desert  which  he  had  chosen  as  a  child,  and  built  a  monas- 
tery, which  he  endowed  with  all  he  had,  and  where  he  was 
shortly  joined  by  a  numerous  band  of  monks.^  But  he  him- 
self, flying  from  the  renown  of  his  virtue,  took  refuge  in  the 
woods  and  most  precipitous  rocks,  that  he  might  be  forgotten 
by  all.  One  day  while  praying  in  a  secluded  spot  in  a  forest, 
a  labourer  who  passed  by  took  him  for  a  fugitive  slave,  ques- 
tioned him,  and,  dissatisfied  with  his  answers,  overwhelmed 
him  with  blows,  and  led  him  by  a  rope  round  his  neck  to  a 
place  where  he  was  recognised.^     Another   time,  like    St. 

1  "Postquam  ...  a  Sede  Romana,  prima  S.  Ecclesiae  Cathedra,  fidei 
catholicse  dogmatum  fulgurans  rutilaret  immensitas  .  .  .  atque  ex  Mgypto 
.  .  .  hujus  occiduje  plagpe  exiguaperluceratextremitas.  .  .  .  Divinapietas 
duas  inluminavit  lucernas,  etc." —  Vit.  S.  Fructuosi,  auct.  S.  Valerio,  abb., 
ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  scbc.  ii.  p.  557. 

2  That  of  Compludo  (in  the  diocese  of  Astorga),  which  has  been  discussed 
before,  on  occasion  of  the  charter  of  King  Cyndaswynde,  in  646. 

3  "  Lo  tria  con  un  garrote." — Yepes,  p.  175. 


I08  ST.    GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Benedict,  he  was  taken  for  a  wild  beast.  A  hunter,  seeing 
him  covered  merely  with  a  goat-skin,  and  prostrated  upon 
the  summit  of  a  rock,  had  aimed  an  arrow  at  him,  when  he 
perceived,  by  seeing  him  lift  his  hands  to  heaven,  that  it 
was  a  man  occupied  in  prayer.^ 

On  another  occasion,  a  hind,  pursued  by  the  huntsman 
and  almost  hunted  down,  threw  herself  into  the  folds  of  the 
solitary's  tunic.  He  saved  her,  and  took  her  with  him  to 
the  monastery ;  and  the  story  runs  that  the  monk  and  the 
wild  creature  loved  each  other  tenderly.  The  hind  followed 
him  everywhere,  slept  at  the  foot  of  his  bed,  and  bleated 
incessantly  when  he  was  absent.  He  sent  her  back  more 
than  once  into  the  wood ;  but  she  always  again  found  the 
road  to  his  cell,  or  the  footsteps  of  her  liberator.  One  day 
at  last  she  was  killed  by  a  young  man  who  had  no  goodwill 
to  the  monks.  Fructuosus  was  absent  some  days  on  a  jour- 
ney ;  on  his  return  he  was  astonished  not  to  see  his  hind 
running  to  meet  him,  and  when  he  heard  of  her  death,  he 
was  seized  with  grief,  his  knees  trembled  under  him,  and  he 
threw  himself  upon  the  floor  of  the  church.  Whether  he 
did  this  to  ask  of  God  the  punishment  of  the  cruel  man,  is 
not  told  ;  but  the  latter  fell  sick  soon  after,  and  begged  the 
abbot  to  come  to  his  aid.  Fructuosus  avenged  himself 
nobly,  and  like  a  Christian  :  he  went  to  heal  the  murderer 
of  his  hind,  and  restored  him  to  health  of  soul  as  well  as  to 
health  of  body.^ 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  such  gracious  and  innocent  tender- 
ness in  times  so  rude,  as  well  as  in  those  strong  souls,  born 
to  reign  and  draw  nations  after  their  footsteps.     The  example 

^  "  Locanemorosa,  argis  densissima,  asperaet  fragosa  .  .  .  capreis  pelli- 
bus  indutus.  In  cnjusdam  rupis  gradibus  .  .  .  quidam  arcistes  .  .  .  cum 
librasset  ictum  ut  dimitteret  sagittam." — Yepes,  c.  4. 

2  "  Victabestiola  .  .  .  sub  vire  Dei  amphibalum  ingressa  est  .  .  .  si  vel 
paululum  ab  ea  recederet,  nunquam  balare  cessaret,  quousque  ad  earn 
denuo  rediret  ...  in  lectulum  ad  pedes  ejus  recubaret  .  .  .  Sanctissimus 
vir  ad  monasfcerium  regressus,  sollicite  requisivit  quidnam  causas  esset  cur 
caprea  sua  ei  solita  more  tunc  minime  occurreret  .  .  .  Qui  mox  genua  sua 
summo  cum  dolore  flectens." — Ibid.,  c.  10. 


ST.  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  IO9 

of  the  young  Gothic  noble,  whom  love  of  penitence  had 
driven  into  solitude,  became  so  contagious,  that  he  had  to 
build  other  monasteries  to  receive  the  immense  choir  of 
converts  who  pressed  upon  his  steps. -^  The  number  became 
so  great,  that  the  duke  of  one  of  the  provinces  wrote  to  the 
king  to  warn  him  that  if  some  obstacle  was  not  interposed, 
the  country  would  be  so  entirely  depopulated,  that  there 
would  remain  nobody  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  army.  The 
women  imitated  the  men ;  Fructuosus  received  one  day  a 
letter  from  a  young  girl  of  noble  family,  named  Benedicta, 
betrothed  to  a  garding — that  is,  to  one  of  the  principal 
officers  of  the  Visigothic  court — telling  him  that  she  had 
escaped  from  her  father's  house,  that  she  was  wandering  in 
the  woods  not  far  from  the  monastery,  and  begging  him  to 
have  pity  on  her  as  upon  a  sheep  which  he  must  snatch 
from  the  fangs  of  the  wolf.  He  received  her,  and  built  for 
her  a  little  cell  in  the  forest,  which  shortly  became  the 
centre  of  a  community  of  eighty  nuns,  where  mothers  often 
came  with  their  daughters  to  consecrate  themselves  to  God. 
The  garding  endeavoured  in  vain  to  recover  his  betrothed  : 
he  compelled  the  superior  of  the  new  monastery  to  bring  to 
him  her  who  had  fled  from  him  :  she  came,  but  refused  to 
look  at  him,  and  he  remained  mute  in  her  presence.  Then 
the  royal  judge  said,  "  Leave  her  to  serve  the  Lord,  and  find 
for  yourself  another  wife."  ^ 

We  cannot  record  all  the  marvellous  incidents  in  the  life 
of  the  monastic  patriarch  of  Lusitania.  We  can  only  say 
that  his  austerities  and  endless  journeys  did  not  prevent  him 
from  cultivating  literature,  from  recommending  its  study  to 
his  monks,  nor  even  from  giving  himself  to  poetry  ;  for 
some   of  his  verses  are  still  extant.  ^      In  the  regulations 

'  "  Ut  catervatim  undique  concurrentium  agmina  conversorum  immensus 
fieret  chorus." — Ybpes,  c.  15. 

2  "  De  prsesentia  regis  levavit  judicem,  qui  inter  eos  examineret  judicii 
veritatem,  comitem  Angelate  .  .  .  Dimitte  earn  Domino  servire,  et  quaere 
tibi  aliam  uxorem." — Ibid.,  c.  17. 

'  S,  FbucTUOSI  Carmina,  ap.  Florez,  Espana  Sagrada. 


no  ST.    GREGORY    THE    GREAT 

whicli  be  composed  for  his  different  houses,  we  find  that 
they  kept  great  flocks  of  sheep,  the  profit  of  which  furnished 
them  with  means  for  the  assistance  of  the  poor,  for  redeem- 
ing captives,  and  exercising  hospitality.  One  monk  was 
specially  charged  with  the  superintendence  of  the  shepherds. 
Some  years  before  bis  death  Fructuosus  was,  against  his 
will,  elevated  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Braga,  by  the 
unanimous  suffrages  of  the  tenth  Council  of  Toledo.  But 
he  did  not  cease  to  practise  the  rule  of  monastic  life,  and  to 
build  new  monasteries.  And  soon,  thanks  to  his  unwearied 
activity,  be  had  covered  Cantabria  and  Lusitania  with  com- 
munities of  both  sexes.  He  bad  surveyed  all  the  coasts  of 
Spain  from  Cape  Finisterre  to  Cape  St.  Vincent,  crossing  the 
embouchure  of  the  rivers  which  were  to  be  named  Douro 
and  Guadalquivir,  reaching  the  promontories,  the  gulfs,  and 
the  islands,  even  to  the  spot  where  Cadiz  was  to  be,^  and 
seeking  everywhere  asylums  for  prayer  and  solitude.  Thanks 
to  him,  the  extreme  frontier  of  the  West  will  be  guarded  by 
a  line  of  monastic  garrisons.  The  great  waves  of  the  ocean 
rushing  from  the  shores  of  another  hemisphere,  from  that 
half  of  the  world  still  unknown  to  Christians,  will  be  met  by 
the  gaze  and  the  prayers  of  the  monks  from  the  lofty  cliffs 
of  the  Iberian  peninsula.  There  they  shall  stand  firm, 
awaiting  the  Mohammedan  invasion;  there  they  shall  en- 
dure and  survive  it ;  there  they  shall  preserve  a  nucleus 
of  faith  and  Christian  virtue,  for  those  incomparable  days 
when,  from  those  shores  freed  by  unwearied  heroism,  Spain 
and  Portugal  shall  spring  forth  to  discover  a  new  world,  and 
to  plant  the  cross  in  Africa,  in  Asia,  and  in  America. 

1  "  Cum  prEefatam  Gaditanam  ingressus  fuisset  insulam  .  .  .  sedificavit 
sanctum  ope  Die  monasterium."— Valerius,  c.  14.  The  particulars  of  the 
numerous  foundations  of  St.  Fructuosus  may  be  seen  in  the  great  work  0. 
Antonio  de  Yepes,  Coronica  General  de  la  Orden  de  San  Benito,  folio,  1 609 
centuria  ii.  pp.  175,  187,  223,  and  following  pages.  This  work,  despite  its 
inaccuracies,  so  often  exposed  by  Mabillon,  is  invaluable  for  everything 
connected  with  monastic  Spain. 


BOOK   YI 

THE  MONKS  UNDER  THE  FIRST  MEROVINGIANS 

SUMMAEY 

I.  Gaul  Conquered  by  the  Franks.— State  of  Gaul  under  the 
Roman  Empire.— Relative  benefits  from  the  invasion  of  the  Barbarians. 
—The  Franks  arrest  and  beat  back  the  other  Barbarians.— Character 
of  the  government  of  the  Franks  in  Gaul  :  equality  of  the  Gauls  and 
Franks.— Fatal  contact  of  Frank  barbarity  and  the  depravity  of  the 
Gallo-Romans. — The  nobility  of  the  two  races  restrain  the  kings,  who 
incline  to  autocracy  and  the  Roman  system  of  taxation.— The  Franks 
alone  escape  Arianism  :  they  respect  the  liberty  of  religion.— Munificence 
of  the  Merovingians  towards  the  monasteries,  strangely  mixed  with  their 
vices  and  crimes. — The  monks  secure  the  civilising  influence  of  the 
Church  over  the  Franks. 

II.  Arrival  of  the  Benedictines  in  Gaul.— St.  Maur  at  Glanfeuil 
in  Anjou. — Propagation  of  the  Benedictine  rule.— First  encounter  of 
Frank  royalty  with  the  sons  of  St.  Benedict.— Theodebert  and  St.  Maur. 

III.  Previous  Relations  between  the  Merovingians  and  the 
Monks.— Clovis  and  his  sons. — Foundation  of  Micy,  near  Orleans.— Clovis 
and  St.  Maixent. — St.  Leobin  tortured  by  the  Franks. — The  sister  and 
daughter  of  Clovis  become  nuns  :  The  latter  founds  St.  Pierre-le-Vif  at 
Sens.— The  monasteries  of  Auvergne,  ransom  of  prisoners  and  refuge  of 
slaves:  Basolus  and  Porcianus.— Thierry  I.  and  St.  Nizier.— Clodomir, 
the  Abbot  Avitus,  and  St.  Cloud.— The  tonsure  and  the  forced  vocations. 
— Childebert,  the  monastic  king  par  excellence  :  his  relations  with  St. 
Eusice  in  Berry,  and  St.  Marculph  in  Neustria.— Emigration  of  the 
British  monks  into  Armorica  :  continued  existence  of  Paganism  in  that 
peninsula  :  poetical  traditions.— Conversion  of  Armorica  by  the  British 
smigrants.- The  Christian  bards  :  Ysulio  and  the  blind  Herve.— Armorican 
monasteries  :  Rhuys  ;  St.  Matthew  of  the  Land's  End;  Landevenec  ;  Dol ; 
Samson,  Abbot  of  Dol,  and  Archbishop.— The  seven  saints  of  Brittany, 
Dishops  and  monks.— Their  intercourse  with  Childebert. — St.  Germain, 
Bishop  of  Paris;  Abbey  of  St.  Germain-des-Pres.— Clolaire  I.  and  St. 
Medard.— Gregory  of   Tours   and   the  sons   of   Clotaire.— Note   on   the 


I  I  2  SUMMARY 

foundations  of  King  Gontran  in  Burgundy.— The  Abbot  Aredius  protects 
against  the  fiscal  system  of  Chilperic,  and  frees  his  serfs.— Maternal  love 
and  monastic  song. 

IV.  St.  Radegund. — Her  origin  and  her  captivity.— Clotaire  makes 
her  his  wife.— Note  on  St.  Consortia.— Radegund  takes  the  veil  from  the 
hands  of  St.  Medard,  establishes  herself  at  Poitiers,  and  founds  there 
the  monastery  of  St.  Croix.— Clotaire  wishes  to  reclaim  her  :  St.  Germain 
prevents  him.— Cloister  life  of  Radegund.— Her  journey  to  Aries.— Her 
relations  with  Fortunatus.— Her  poetry.— Her  indifference  to  the  outer 
world  ;  her  solicitude  for  peace  among  the  Merovingian  princes. — Her 
austerities.- Her  friendship  for  the  Benedictine  St.  Junian  — They  both 
died  on  the  same  day.— Revolt  of  the  nuns  of  St.  Croix  under  Chrodield  and 
Basine,  princesses  of  the  Merovingian  blood.— This  occurs  at  the  time  of 
the  arrival  of  Columba,  the  great  Celtic  missionary,  in  Gaul. 

v.  The  Monks  and  Natuee. — State  of  the  forests  of  Gaul  from  the 
fifth  to  the  seventh  century.— Invasion  of  solitude  ;  St.  Liephard  at 
Meung-sur-Loire  :  deserts  in  Gaul. — The  monks  in  the  forests.— St.  Seine 
in  Burgundy.— St.  Imier  in  Jura.— St.  Junian  in  Limousin.— The  anchorites 
of  the  woods  transformed  into  monks  by  the  multitude  which  followed 
them.— St.  Laumer  in  Perche.— St.  Magloire  in  Armorica  and  Jersey.— 
Donations  of  Frankish  nobles,  some  accepted,  others  refused  ;  St.  Laumer 
once  more  ;  popular  discontents. — St.  Malo. 

The  monks  and  the  brigands  :  St.  Seine  and  St.  Evroul— The  monks 
and  the  hunters  :  Brachio  and  the  wild  boar,  at  Menat.— Right  of  shelter 
for  game.— St.  Calais  and  his  buffalo  ;  Childebert  and  Ultrogotha.— St, 
Marculph  and  his  hare.— St.  Giles  and  his  hind.— The  Abbess  Ninnok.— 
St.  Desle  and  Clotaire  IL— St.  Basle  and  his  wild  boar. — St.  Laumer  and 
his  hind.— Supernatural  empire  of  the  monks  over  the  animals,  the  con- 
sequence of  man's  return  to  innocence. — MiEACLES  IN  Histoey. — Vives, 
Titus  Livius,  De  Maistre.— The  monks  and  the  wild  beasts  in  the  Thebaid. 

Gerasimus  and  his  lion. — St.  Martin  and  his  plungeons. — St.  Benedict 

and  his  raven. The  monks  and  the  birds  in  Gaul :  St.  Maxent ;  St.  Valery  ; 

St.  Calais ;  St.  Malo;  St.  Magloire. — Sites  of  monasteries  indicated  by 
animals  :  Fecamp. — St.  Thierry  ;  St.  Berchaire  at  Hautvilliers. — Domesti- 
cation of  fallow-deer  by  the  monks  :  Celtic  legends  :  the  wolves  and  stags : 
Herve,  Pol  de  Leon,  Colodocus.— St.  Leonor  and  the  stags  at  the  plough. 

Agricultural  works  of  the  monks  in  the  forest.— Clearing.— St.  Brieuc. 

Fruit-trees. Various  occupations. — Influence  of  their  example  on  the 

rural  populations.— St.  Fiacre  and  his  garden.— Karilef  and  his  treasure.— 
Theodulph  and  his  plough.— Solicitude  of  the  monks  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  peasants.  — Council  of  Rouen. — The  forest  canticle,  the 
monastic  spring  in  the  woods. 


BOOK  VI 

THE  MONKS  UNDER  THE  FIRST  MEROVINGIANS 


Si  quid  hoc  in  opere  vobis  prseclarum  videbitur,  id  veterum  est,  iis  im- 
pertite  quam  merentur  laudem.  At  me  sicubi  conjectura  fefellit, 
si  non  sum  scriptorum  sententiam  probe  assecutus,  si  adulterinum 
aliquod  scriptum  pro  legitime  suscepi,  si  respui  quod  rectum  erat 
et  purum,  date  veniam  et  me  admonete. — Bollandus,  Acta  Sanc- 
torum,, t.  i,  p.  xliv.  (e). 


I. — Gaul  Conquered  by  the  Franks 

We  have  overstepped  the  course  of  time  to  indicate  all  that 
monastic  institutions  owe  to  the  greatest  of  popes,  and  what 
they  became  in  the  Iberian  peninsula  under  leaders  imbued 
with  his  spirit.  We  must  now  go  back  a  century  and  cross 
the  Alps  and  Pyrenees,  to  concentrate  our  narrative  in  Gaul, 
in  that  country  where  Marmoutier,  Lerins,  Condat,  and  other 
great  foundations  had  not  exhausted  the  monastic  impulse, 
and  where  Providence  destined  the  Benedictine  tree  to  shoot 
out  its  most  vigorous  and  productive  branches. 

In  the  year  of  St.  Benedict's  birth,  Clovis  began  to  reign 
over  the  Salian  Franks,  and  during  the  whole  lifetime  of 
the  patriarch,  Gaul,  disputed  by  the  Franks  against  the 
Goths  and  Burgundians,  gradually  yielded  to  the  powerful 
pressure  of  the  Merovingians  and  their  conquering  bands. 
The  evils  which  accompanied  that  conquest  are  known. 
But  the  condition  to  which  the  rule  of  Eome  had  reduced 
Gaul  when  the  Franks,  coming  last  after  so  many  other 
Barbarians,  took  it  for  their  prey,  should  not  be  forgotten. 
Under  the  emperors,  Eome  had  carried   corruption  into  all 

VOL.   II.  "3  g 


114  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

the  provinces  of  the  world  which  under  the  republic  she 
had  conquered.  Tacitus  shows  us  that  every  seat  of  Roman 
administration  was  a  permanent  school  of  oppression  and 
depravity,  where  avarice  and  sensuality  reigned  always  in- 
satiable and  unpunished.^  Of  the  old  Gauls  who  had  over- 
run Spain,  Italy,  Greece,  and  even  Asia  Minor;  who  had 
filled  the  world  with  the  din  of  their  arms  and  the  terror 
of  their  name ;  who  had  conquered  Eome ;  whom  Rome 
had  afterwards  vanquished  and  enslaved,  but  whom  she  had 
never  surpassed  nor  even  equalled  in  heroism  and  greatness 
of  soul, — of  these  men  none  remained.  The  tyranny  of  the 
Csesars  had  annihilated  them.  In  vain  their  sons  rose 
under  Augustus,  Tiberius,  Nero,  and  Vespasian,  protesting 
thus  against  the  pretended  amelioration  in  the  fate  of  the 
Roman  provinces  under  the  empire.  Vainly,  from  age  to 
age,  had  Gaul,  in  despair  of  regaining  her  independence, 
attempted  to  cheat  her  misery  by  imposing  Gaulish  empe- 
rors on  Rome.  In  vain  the  insurgent  and  half-Christian 
Bagaudes  had  meditated  the  substitution  of  a  kind  of 
Gaulish  empire  in  place  of  the  Roman.  Ground  down  by 
the  merciless  millstone  of  the  imperial  government  and 
taxation,  Gaul  had  lost  its  nationality,  its  civil  and  muni- 
cipal institutions,  its  territorial  wealth,  its  ancient  Celtic 
tongue,  and  even  its  name,  one  after  the  other ;  its  inhabi- 
tants were  known  only  under  the  name  of  Romans,  a  name 
which  for  them  was  the  symbol  of  decrepitude  and  shame.^ 
In  place  of  their  ancient  national  worship — Druidical  sac- 
rifices, which  were  interdicted  under  pain  of  death — the 
hideous  idolatry  of  the  Caesars,  whom  a  vile  senate  declared 
divine,  was  imposed  upon  them.  That  dauntless  courage 
which  had  hitherto  pointed  them  out  to  the  admiration  of 

1  Compare  Doellinger,  Heidenthum  und  Judenthum,  p.  728. 

2  "  The  state  of  the  Gauls  under  the  imperial  government  was  one  of 
the  most  debasing  and  cruel  political  slavery." — Mile.  DE  Lezahdiere, 
Theories  des  Lois  Politiques  de  la  France.  "  The  title  of  Roman  citizens 
which  the  Gauls  bore  had  long  belonged  only  to  slaves."  — Mablt, 
Observations  sur  VHistoire  de  France,  t.  i.  p.  243. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  II5 

the  world,  had  disappeared  with  their  liberty.^  The  ruling 
classes  were  enslaved  and  degraded,  while  the  lower  ranks 
of  the  people  had  gained  nothing :  on  the  contrary,  in 
proportion  to  the  extension  of  great  estates,  the  husband- 
men found  their  lot  aggravated,  and  the  universal  servitude 
weighed  upon  them  with  a  crushing  yoke.  The  free  clients 
of  whom  C^sar  speaks  had  disappeared.  The  Gaulish  chiefs, 
transformed  into  degenerate  patricians,  had  the  vast  estates 
on  which  they  scarcely  ever  lived  cultivated  by  slaves,  like 
the  plantations  of  our  colonies  before  the  emancipation  of 
the  negroes.^  It  has  been  calculated  that  there  scarcely 
remained,  in  the  time  of  Constantine,  a  million  of  freemen 
in  all  that  immense  region.^ 

The  Church  alone  remained  erect,  the  sole  asylum  of 
human  dignity  and  freedom,  under  this  frightful  oppression. 
She  alone  put  some  check  upon  injustice  and  tyranny,  miti- 
gated the  overwhelming  poverty  of  the  people,  encouraged 
agriculture  in  her  own  lands,  retained  in  her  bosom  the 
memory  and  practice  of  popular  election,  and  assured 
Defenders,  in  the  persons  of  her  bishops,  to  cities  abandoned 
or  ransomed  by  their  magistrates.  But  her  influence,  far 
from  being  preponderant,  could  only  struggle  imperfectly 
against  the  universal  decay,  and  had  no  power  to  reproduce 
those  civic  virtues  which  were  stifled  like  the  free  cities  under 
the  cosmopolitan  despotism  of  the  emperors.^  Four  centuries 
of  Roman  government  had  been  enough  to  divest  Gaul  of  all 
law  and  order  in  civil  affairs,  as  well  as  of  all  national  and 

1  "  Amissa  virtute  pariter  et  libertate."— Tacitus,  Agric,  ii.;  Ann.,  xi. 
18  ;  Germ.,  28.     Doellingee,  Heidenthum  und  Judenthum,  p.  611-613. 

2  See  the  excellent  summary  of  the  oppression  and  ruin  of  the  Gauls 
under  Koman  dominion,  which  is  given,  after  many  other  writers,  by  Sir 
James  Stephen,  Lectures  on  the  History  of  France  (London),  1859,  t.  i. 
p.  57.  As  to  the  details,  M.  Guizot,  in  his  Essais  sur  VHistoire  de  Prance, 
and  his  second  lesson  of  the  course  for  1824,  has  been  surpassed  as  yet 
by  none,^  except  perhaps  by  Le  Huerou,  in  chap.  viii.  of  his  Origines 
Merovingiennes  (Paris),  1843. 

3  Henri  Maktin,  Histoire  de  France,  t.  i.  p.  292,  4th  edition. 
■*  Stephen,  he.  cit. ;  H.  Martin,  p.  332. 


Il6  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

personal  independence.  How  could  such  a  population,  de- 
based and  exhausted  by  a  rule,  the  very  weakness  of  which 
increased  its  minute  and  imbecile  tyranny,  resist  the  re- 
peated inroads  of  the  Barbarians  ?  The  Arverne  aristocracy 
alone,  which  seemed  to  be  animated  still  by  the  spirit  of 
the  great  Vercingetorix,  and  which  had  retained  popular 
sympathy  by  some  unknown  means,  struggled  with  the 
obstinacy  of  despair  against  the  Visigoths  in  the  first 
place,  and  then  against  the  sons  of  Clovis.  Everywhere 
else  the  Barbarian  domination  was  accepted  as  a  kind  of 
deliverance. 

And  indeed  it  actually  was  such,  for  the  German  nations 
brought  with  them  that  manly  energy  which  the  serfs  of  the 
empire  lacked.  Life  had  everywhere  ebbed  away ;  the  con- 
querors brought  a  new  life  to  the  soil  which  they  invaded,  as 
well  as  to  the  men  whom  they  incorporated  under  their 
victorious  sway.  All  that  remained  of  the  nobility  of  Gaul 
saw  them  appear  with  terror  ;  but  what  had  the  rural  colonists 
and  humble  townspeople  to  lose  by  this  change  of  masters  ? 
On  the  contrary,  they  could  only  gain  by  the  destruction  of 
that  Roman  system  of  taxation,  the  most  rapacious  that  was 
ever  dreamed  of.  To  take  for  themselves  a  portion,  the  half 
or  a  third,  of  landed  property  and  slaves,  as  did  the  Bur- 
gundians  and  Visigoths,  but  at  the  same  time  to  exempt  the 
remainder  from  all  those  exactions  which  under  the  Romans 
compelled  the  landowners  to  abandon  all  they  possessed  to 
the  treasury,  was  to  bring  an  evident  and  real  relief  to  an 
insupportable  state  of  things.^ 

As  for  the  Franks,  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  ever 
decreed  general  confiscations.  The  discoveries  of  modern 
study  have  proved,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  generally 
respected  the  private  property  of  the  Gallo-Romans.  Accord- 
ing to  all  appearance,  they  contented  themselves  with  the 

1  Paul  Roth.,  GescMchte  der  Benefizialwesens  ;  Leo,  Ursprung  des  DeuU 
schenVolkes und Reich.es,  p.  324 ;  Cantu,  Storiadegl' Italiani,  ch.  63 ;  Stephen, 
loc.  cit.,  p.  300 ;  Lb  Hueeou,  p.  268. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  II7 

lands  which  were  at  first  conceded  to  them  by  the  emperors, 
and  with  the  vast  stretches  of  uncultivated  soil  abandoned  in 
consequence  of  the  universal  impoverishment,  which  they 
shared  among  themselves  by  lot,  and  which  were  called 
allodia,  while  their  kings  appropriated  the  immense  estates 
of  the  imperial  treasury.  Let  us  add,  that  in  expelling  the 
Roman  magistrates,  they  seem  to  have  interfered  little  with 
municipal  government,  but  to  have  left  the  principal  part  of 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops,  and  we  shall  be  able  to  con- 
ceive how,  as  the  latest  of  our  historians  affirms,  the  mass  of 
the  people  had  more  horror  for  the  pedantic  and  systematic 
oppression  of  the  empire,  than  for  the  brutal  and  capricious 
sway  of  the  Barbarians.^ 

Besides,  the  Romans  of  the  empire,  as  has  been  often 
remarked,  carried  into  Gaul  a  principle  proper  to  themselves, 
the  fatal  principle  of  the  supremacy  of  cities.  The  Germans, 
on  the  contrary,  in  their  primitive  state,  knew  no  life  but  that 
of  the  fields,  a  rural  and  sylvan  existence.  The  village  was, 
as  it  may  still  be  seen  in  India,  the  foundations  of  their 
national  life.  In  conquering  Gaul,  they  restored  life  to  its 
plains ;  they  created  there  the  village,  the  free  and  rural 
community,  and  emancipated  them  from  the  sway  of  towns ; 
they  constituted  there  the  most  influential  element  in  the 
new  nationality.  This  preponderance  was  only  more  and 
more  manifested  and  consolidated  in  proportion  as  the  feudal 
system  developed  itself  and  struck  root  in  the  soil. 

The  Franks  conferred,  besides,  a  crowning  service  on 
Gaul,  which  she  had  looked  for  in  vain  from  the  last 
emperors.  St.  Jerome  has  left  us  a  formidable  list  of  the 
Barbarian  nations  which  had  invaded  her  lands  under  im- 
perial rule.  "  The  countries  that  lie  between  the  Alps  and 
Pyrenees,  between  the  Rhine  and  the  sea,  have  been  de- 
vastated by  the  Quade,  the  Vandal,  the  Sarmate,  the  Alain, 
the   Gepid,  the   Herule,  the   Burgonde,  the  Aleman,  and  oh 

1  Henei  Martin,  p.  354.    Le  Huerou  furnishes  proof  of  this  by  un- 
deniable evidence,  op.  cit.,  p.  251. 


I  1 8  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

supreme  calamity !  by  the  Hun."  ■^  Coming  after  all  these 
ferocious  predecessors,  each  of  whom,  except  the  Burgondes, 
had  only  passed  through  Gaul  like  a  tempest,  the  Franks 
debarred  from  entrance  the  other  pagan  nations  who  pressed 
upon  their  steps.  They  turned  against  the  current  by 
which  they  had  themselves  been  brought.  They  made 
vigorous  head  against  the  Alemans,  the  Saxons,  the  Slaves, 
and  the  Avars,  who,  but  for  them,  would  have  crossed  the 
Rhine  and  invaded  Gaul.  Becoming  Christians,  not  in  a 
body  or  all  at  once  in  the  train  of  Clevis,  as  has  been 
erroneously  supposed,  but  very  gradually  and  slowly,^  they 
set  their  face  against  the  enemies  of  Christendom.  They 
remained,  long  after  their  conversion,  as  wild,  fierce,  and 
cruel  as  before.  Tbey  were  not  transformed  in  a  day.  Two 
centuries  of  fratricidal  wars  between  the  Merovingian  kings 
demonstrate  this  only  too  clearly,  while  they  also  prove  the 
superstitious  veneration,  the  pagan  idolatry,  which  the  Franks 
entertained  for  that  long-haired  dynasty,  the  scions  of  which 
they  deposed  and  murdered  one  by  one,  but  apart  from 
which  no  one  among  them  had  yet  dreamt  of  seeking  chiefs 
of  a  different  race. 

Their  barbarism  cannot  be  denied ;  we  must  not  only 
believe  all  that  historians  have  said  of  them,  but  add  that 
here,  as  throughout  all  antiquity,  these  narratives  are  far 
from  reaching  the  full   extent  "of  unknown  tyranny,  un- 

1  Epist.  ad  Ageruchiam,  t.  iv.  p.  748,  edit.  1706. 

^  More  than  a  century  after  Clovis,  we  still  find  pagans  among  Franks 
of  the  most  elevated  rank.  St.  Lupus,  Bishop  of  Sens,  exiled  by  Clotaire 
II.  about  615,  was  intrusted  to  the  care  of  a  duke  called  Boson,  who  was 
still  pagan,  and  who  occupied  the  shores  of  the  Oise  :  "  Ubi  erant  templa 
phanatica  a  decurionibus  culta  .  .  .  prjedictiim  ducem  vitali  tinxit  in 
lavacro,  plurimumque  Francorum  exercitum,  qui  adhuc  erroris  detinebatur 
laqueis,  illuminavit  per  baptismum." — ACT.  SS.  Bolland.,  t.  i  Sept.,  p. 
259.  The  second  successor  of  St.  Colomba  at  Bobbio,  the  Abbot  Bertulf, 
who  died  in  640,  was  of  pagan  birth,  although  a  near  relation  of  St.  Arnoul, 
Bishop  of  Metz.  It  will  be  seen  hereafter,  that  a  great  proportion  of  the 
Franks  established  in  Belgium  remained  idolaters  even  in  the  eighth 
century. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  II9 

punished  rapine,  and  unavenged  destruction."  ^  But  we 
must  not  believe  that  the  Franks  were,  as  has  been  assumed, 
less  civilised,  less  human,  and  greater  oppressors  than  the 
other  Barbarians.  In  no  point  of  view  do  they  deserve  a 
lower  place  than  the  Visigoths  or  Burgundians.  They  had 
evidently  as  much  inclination  and  attraction  towards  the 
cultivation  of  the  mind  and  literature.  The  chapel  which 
the  Merovingian  kings  instituted  in  the  earliest  times  of 
their  conversion,  with  the  school  which  was  immediately 
attached  to  it,  as  an  inseparable  appendage  to  the  royal 
residence,  became  soon  a  nursery  of  zealous  and  learned 
clerks,  where  the  young  Frank  and  Gallo-Roman  nobility 
drew  such  instruction  as  was  best  adapted  to  their  time  and 
habits.  The  important  charges  of  the  Church  and  court 
were  given  to  those  who  had  distinguished  themselves 
there.^  All  the  biographies  of  the  saints  are  unanimous  in 
stating  this  fact ;  and  Gregory  of  Tours  confirms  it,  by 
speaking  of  the  palatine  emdition  as  of  a  kind  of  ecclesi- 
astical and  political  novitiate  which  was  in  active  operation 
under  the  grandsons  of  Clovis.^ 

It  is  still  more  certain  that  the  oppression  of  the  Gallo- 
Romans  by  the  Franks  was  never  systematic,  nor  so  specially 
cruel  and  complete,  as  a  theory  cleverly  upheld  in  our  own 
days,  but  contradicted  by  all  contemporary  writers,  would 
have  it  to  be.  Doubtless,  in  the  north-east  district  of  Gaul, 
which  was  the  first  occupied  by  the  Franks,  who  were  then 
entirely  pagan,  the  Roman  population  was  cruelly  spoiled 
and  maltreated,  if  not  entirely  exterminated.  But  after 
their  conversion,  in  proportion  as  they  approached  the  Loire, 
and  especially  when  they  spread  themselves  to  the  south  of 
that  river,  the  Gallo-Romans  are  seen  to  have  preserved  all 

^  OzANAM,  Etudes  German.,  t.  ii.  p.  502. 

^  Numerous  and  precise  details  on  this  subject  are  to  be  found  in 
L'Eistoire  de  St.  Ldger,  by  Dom  Pitra,  p.  114,  and  Appendix.  This  word 
chapel,  as  synonymous  with  oratory,  is  derived,  according  to  Ducange,  from 
the  little  cape  or  cloak  of  St  Martin,  which  was  one  of  the  most  noted 
Merovingian  relics.  ^   Vit,  S.  Aredii  Abbatis,  c.  3. 


I20  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

their  property,  and  to  have  enjoyed  absolutely  the  same 
rights  as  their  conquerors.  Among  the  Franks,  as  among 
the  Gauls,  poor  men,  artisans  and  slaves,  are  to  be  seen,  as 
well  as  rich  men  and  nobles.  The  nobles  of  Gaul,  and 
members  of  those  families  called  senatorial,  occupied  the 
same  rank  as  under  the  Roman  empire,  and  were  associated 
in  the  court  and  military  retinue  of  the  Merovingian  kings 
with  the  leudes  and  antrustions  of  Frankish  race.  The 
Gallo-Romans  are  everywhere  found  in  the  highest  ranks, 
not  only  in  the  Church,  where  they  had,  up  to  the  end 
of  the  sixth  century,  almost  exclusive  possession  of  the 
bishoprics,  but  among  the  companions  of  the  king,  among 
the  dukes  and  counts,  at  the  head  of  armies,  and  even  in 
the  offices  of  the  royal  household,  which  might  well  have 
been  exclusively  reserved  for  the  companions  and  compatriots 
of  the  prince. 

It  is  at  the  same  time  necessary  to  remark  the  difference 
established  by  the  Salic  law  in  the  rate  of  compensation  due 
for  murders  committed  upon  the  Franks  and  upon  the 
Romans,  from  which  we  perceive  that  the  life  of  a  Roman 
is  estimated  at  half  the  value  only  of  that  of  a  Frank. 
Except  that  single  particular,  in  which  the  natural  pride  of 
the  victor  manifests  itself,  no  trace  of  radical  distinction  is 
to  be  found  between  the  conquering  and  conquered  races. 
The  Gallo-Roman  retained  his  private  rights,  but  was  sub- 
ject to  the  same  laws  and  obtained  the  same  guarantees  as 
the  Frank.  As  for  public  rights,  he  was  exposed,  like  the 
Frank,  but  not  more  than  he,  to  the  atrocious  violences 
which  daily  broke  out  in  that  society,  and  which  were  as 
often  originated  by  himself  as  by  the  Frank  or  Burgun- 
dian.^  For  there  were  Gallo-Romans  as  deeply  imbued  as 
the  Barbarians  with  that  ferocity  which  is  inspired  by  the 

1  Roth  and  Leo,  in  the  works  already  quoted,  and  Waitz  {Deutsche  Vcr- 
fassungs  GescJiichte),  have  shown  beyond  dispute  this  identity  of  position 
between  the  Frankish  and  Gaulish  nobility  under  the  Merovingian  sway  : 
the  Abbd  Dubos  had  made  it  the  basis  of  his  absurd  system  on  the  absence 
of  all  conquest. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  121 

possession  of  uncontrolled  wealth  and  strength.  They  had 
their  share  in  almost  all  the  crimes  and  treacheries  which 
appear  in  the  annals  of  this  unhappy  period.  It  has  been 
said  with  justice,  "The  greatest  evil  of  Barbarian  govern- 
ment was  perhaps  the  influence  of  the  greedy  and  corrupt 
Romans,  who  insinuated  themselves  into  the  confidence  of 
their  new  masters."  ^  It  is  to  them  especially  that  those 
refinements  of  debauchery  and  perfidy,  which  it  is  so  sur- 
prising to  find  amid  the  savage  brutality  of  the  German 
tribes,  should  be  attributed.  They  instructed  their  con- 
querors in  the  art  of  oppression,  and  taught  them  how  to 
degrade  their  compatriots,  by  means  which  the  natural 
obtuseness  of  the  Goths  and  Teutons  could  never  have 
suggested.  The  Barbarians  derived  no  advantage  from  their 
contact  with  the  Roman  world,  depraved  as  it  was  under 
the  empire.  They  brought  with  them  manly  virtues,  of 
which  the  conquered  race  had  lost  even  the  recollection  ; 
but  they  borrowed,  at  the  same  time,  abject  and  contagious 
vices,  of  which  the  Germanic  world  had  no  conception. 
They  found  Christianity  there ;  but  before  they  yielded  to 
its  beneficent  influence,  they  had  time  to  plunge  into  all 
the  baseness  and  debauchery  of  a  civilisation  corrupted 
long  before  it  was  vanquished.  The  patriarchal  system  of 
government  which  characterised  the  ancient  Germans,  in 
their  relations  with  their  children  and  slaves  as  well  as  with 
their  chiefs,  fell  into  ruin  in  contact  with  that  contagious 
depravity. 

At  a  later  period,  when  the  Christian  spirit  had  estab- 
lished its  empire,  and  when  all  the  old  Roman  remains 
had  been  absorbed  and  transformed  by  the  German  element 
under  the  first  Carlovingians,  the  evil  lessened,  and  if  it  did 
not  disappear  completely,  all  the  nations  of  Christendom  at 
least  could  constitute  themselves  under  laws  and  manners 
which  they  needed  neither  to  blush  for  nor  to  complain  of. 

1  Henei  Maktin,  t.  i.  p.  394.     Compare  Augustin  Thieeky,  Recits 
Merov.,  t.  ii.  p.  45,  and  Albeet  Du  Boys,  Histoire  du  Droit  Criminel. 


122  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

But  at  the  period  of  which  we  treat  nothing  could  be  more 
sad  than  the  first  fusion  of  Germanic  barbarism  and  Koman 
corruption.  All  the  excesses  of  a  savage  condition  were 
then  combined  with  the  vices  of  a  civilisation  learnedly 
depraved.  From  this  perverse  and  fatal  origin  flow  these 
revolting  abuses  of  seignorial  right,  which,  continued  and 
developed  by  the  course  of  time,  debased  the  feudal  system 
and  made  it  so  unpopular.  And  here  we  must  seek  the 
secret  of  these  monstrous  examples  of  treason  and  ferocity 
which  appear  on  almost  every  page  of  the  narrative  of 
Gregory  of  Tours,  and  throw  a  sanguinary  light  upon  the 
early  pages  of  our  history. 

Thence,  also,  came  the  attempts  of  the  Merovingian  kings 
to  re-establish  and  aggravate  the  Roman  system  of  taxation. 
Sometimes  it  was  the  churches  from  which  they  exacted  the 
payment  of  a  third  of  their  revenues  ;^  sometimes  it  was 
the  poll-tax  which  they  tried  to  establish,  not,  as  among  the 
Romans,  upon  the  plebeians  without  landed  property,  but 
upon  all,  and  first  on  the  Franks  themselves.  But  here 
the  old  Germanic  law  took  the  upper  hand.  Even  in  the 
absence  of  the  national  assemblies,  which  seem  to  have  been 
suspended  during  the  reign  of  Clovis  and  his  immediate 
successors,^  the  resistance  was  energetic  and  triumphant. 
The  Merovingian  kings  had  vainly  manifested  an  inclination 
to  imitate  the  despotism  of  the  Roman  emperors,  for  they 
had  always  to  reckon  with  the  Frank  nobles,  who  would  not 
renounce  the  freedom  of  their  ancestors  upon  soil  conquered 
by  themselves,  and  who,  reinforced  by  the  descendants  of 
the  old  chivalrous  races  of  Gaul,^  soon  formed  around  the 
throne  an  aristocracy  at  once  civil  and  warlike,  free  and 
powerful,  as  proud  of  its  origin  as  of  its  rights,  and  resolved 

1  Greg.  Tur.,  iv.  2. 

^  Waitz,  Deutsche  Vcrfassungs  Geschichte,  tit.  ii.  p.  480. 

2  The  Equites,  of  whom  Csesar  speaks,  with  their  dependants,  whose 
analogy  with  German  manners  he  did  not  understand,  and  whose  position 
he  has  not  sufficiently  distinguished  from  servitude. 


THE    FIRST   MEROVINGIANS  123 

not  to  be  reduced  to  the  vile  level  of  the  Roman  senate.-^ 
According  to  the  old  privilege  of  German  freedom,  they 
assumed  the  right  of  speaking  out  on  every  subject,  inter- 
fering actively  in  all  public  interests,  resisting  all  usurpa- 
tions, and  striking  down  the  guilty.^  Their  superstitious 
regard  for  the  Merovingian  blood,  their  traditional  devotion 
to  the  person  of  the  chief,  led  them  to  fill  domestic  offices 
about  the  persons  of  their  kings,  which  among  the  ancient 
Romans  were  reserved  for  slaves,  but  which  bore  no  servile 
character  among  the  German  races,  and  were,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  privilege  of  the  principal  men  of  the  nation,  who 
were  called  trusty.^  But  this  loyalty  did  not  prevent  them 
from  opposing  to  the  violence  of  their  master  other  out- 
breaks of  violence  not  less  dreadful,  and  often  not  less 
illegitimate.  "  Farewell,"  said  a  deputation  of  Austrasian 
lords  to  King  Gontran  of  Burgundy,  grandson  of  Clovis — 
"  farewell,  oh  king  !  we  take  leave  of  thee,  reminding  thee 
that  the  axe  which  has  broken  the  head  of  thy  brethren  is 
still  bright ;  and  it  shall  be  thy  brains  nest  which  it  will 
dash  out."  * 

By  what  prodigious  change  did  these  scarcely-baptized 
Barbarians  become  the  cherished  nation  of  the  Church, 
and  the  chosen  race  of  Christendom  ?  This  will  be  seen 
by  the  following  narrative.  In  the  meantime,  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that,  by  a  singular  privilege,  they  were  never 
Arians.  They  alone,  among  all  the  Barbarian  conquerors 
of  the  empire,  never  permitted  their  energy  and  simplicity 
to    become   the    victims   of    that   heresy,    which    exercised 

1  Terms  which  prove  the  great  importance  attached  to  birth  are  to  be 
found  on  every  page  of  the  contemporary  authors,  and  especially  in  the 
Lives  of  the  Saints  :  seniores,  potentes,  meliores,  nobilcs.  .  .  .  Claro  stemmate 
ortus.  .  .  .  Ex  progenie  celsa  Francorum  Prosapia  Francorum  altis  satis  et 
nobilibus  parentibus,  &c.     Compare  Waitz,  op.  cit. 

2  Aug.  Thieeey,  Ricits  Merovingiens,  tit.  ii.  p.  95. 

3  Antrustion,  man  in  the  confidence  (trust)  of  the  chief,  a  term  translated 
in  the  Latin  version  of  the  Salic  law  by  that  of  conviva  regis. 

■*  "  Valedicimus  tibi,  o  rex.  .  .  .  Scimus  solidam  esse  securim  .  .  . 
celerius  tuum  librabit  defixa  cerebrum."— Geeg.  Tueon.,  lib.  vii.  c.  14. 


124  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

an  inexplicable  ascendancy  over  all  the  Germanic  tribes,  and 
which,  overcome  among  the  old  Christians,  formed  for  itself  a 
triumphant  asylum  among  their  conquerors.  Closing  Gaul 
against  the  other  Barbarians,  and  assuring  Catholic  unity 
within  her  by  pursuing  heresy  without  open  persecution, 
was  to  render  two  crowning  services  to  new-born  Christen- 
dom, South  of  the  Loire,  the  Catholic  population,  which 
was  too  well  aware  of  the  persecutions  raised  against  the 
orthodox  clergy  in  Spain  and  Africa  by  the  Arian  Barbarians, 
passionately  longed  for  the  government  of  the  Franks.^  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  St.  Eemy  said  to  the  detractors  of 
Clovis,  "  Much  must  be  pardoned  to  him  who  has  been  the 
propagator  of  the  faith,  and  the  saviour  of  provinces." 
This  explains  without  justifying  those  terms  of  adulation 
which  most  of  the  ecclesiastical  writers  have  addressed  to 
princes  whose  public  and  private  life  was  stained  with 
atrocious  crimes.  Different  from  the  Byzantine  emperors, 
who  interposed  the  authority  of  the  state  in  spiritual  affairs 
on  all  occasions,  and  who  believed  themselves  better  theo- 
logians than  the  bishops,  they  meddled  little  in  theology, 
and,  except  in  the  too  numerous  cases  where  they  tampered 
with  the  freedom  of  episcopal  elections  in  favour  of  their 
domestics  or  followers,  they  left  the  Church  entirely  inde- 
pendent in  matters  of  faith  and  discipline.  They  displayed, 
also,  great  liberality  to  the  bishops  and  monks  :  they  did 
not  content  themselves  with  restoring  to  the  Church  all  that 
had  been  taken  from  her ;  they  selected  from  the  immense 
possessions  which  had  become  crown-lands  by  conquest,  at 
the  same  time  as  they  divided  the  land  into  benefices  for 
their  trusty  laymen,  other  vast  territories,  mostly  unculti- 
vated, desert,  or  covered  with  inaccessible  forests,  with 
which  they  endowed  the  principal  monasteries  erected 
during    the   Merovingian    period.^      The    great    farms,    or 

1  "  Amore  desiderabili."— Greg.  Tukon.,  Hist.  EccL,  lib.  ii.  c.  23. 
"  The  royal  treasury  is  mentioned  in  the  first  well-authenticated  charter  of 
Clovis,  in  favour  of  the  Abbey  of  Micy,  near  Orleans.— Ap.  Beequigny,  No.  6. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 25 

towns,  where  the  Frankish  kings  held  their  court,  in  the 
centre  of  agricultural  labours,  were  repeatedly  transformed 
into  religious  establishments/ 

And  yet  they  were  sad  Christians.  While  they  respected 
the  freedom  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and  made  external  pro- 
fession of  it,  they  violated  without  scruple  all  its  precepts, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  simplest  laws  of  humanity.  After 
having  prostrated  themselves  before  the  tomb  of  some  holy 
martyr  or  confessor,  after  having  distinguished  themselves 
by  the  choice  of  an  irreproachable  bishop,  after  having 
listened  respectfully  to  the  voice  of  a  pontiff  or  monk,  we 
see  them,  sometimes  in  outbreaks  of  fury,  sometimes  by 
cold-blooded  cruelties,  give  full  course  to  the  evil  instincts 
of  their  savage  nature.  Their  incredible  perversity  was 
most  apparent  in  the  domestic  tragedies,  the  fratricidal 
executions  and  assassinations,  of  which  Clovis  gave  the  first 
example,  and  which  marked  the  history  of  his  son  and 
grandson  with  an  ineffaceable  stain.  Polygamy  and  perjury 
mingled  in  their  daily  life  with  a  semi-pagan  superstition  ; 
and  in  reading  these  bloody  biographies,  scarcely  lightened 
by  some  transient  gleams  of  faith  or  humility,  it  is  diflBcult 
to  believe  that,  in  embracing  Christianity,  they  gave  up  a 
single  pagan  vice  or  adopted  a  single  Christian  virtue. 

It  was  against  this  barbarity  of  the  soul,  far  more  alarm- 
ing than  grossness  and  violence  of  manners,  that  the  Church 
triumphantly  struggled.  From  the  midst  of  these  frightful 
disorders,  of  this  double  current  of  corruption  and  ferocity, 
the  pure  and  resplendent  light  of  Christian  sanctity  was  about 
to  rise.  But  the  secular  clergy,  itself  tainted  by  the  general 
demoralisation  of  the  two  races,  was  not  sufficient  for  this 
task.^     They  needed  the  powerful  and  soon  preponderating 

1  For  example,  Ebreuil,  in  Auvergne. 

2  Leo  [op.  cit.)  has  very  jastly  remarked,  that  owing  to  the  demoralisa- 
tion of  the  native  clergy,  the  complete  conversion  of  the  Franks  was  a 
longer  and  more  arduous  task  to  the  ecclesiastical  and  monastic  apostles  of 
Gaul  than  the  conversion  of  England,  or  even  of  Germany,  had  been,  where 
all  was  done  in  a  single  stroke  by  a  body  of  foreign  missionaries  and  monks. 


126  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

assistance  of  the  monastic  army.  It  did  not  fail :  the 
Church  and  France  owe  to  it  the  decisive  victory  of 
Christian  civilisation  over  a  race  much  more  difficult  to 
subdue  than  the  degenerate  subjects  of  Rome  or  Byzantium. 
While  the  Franks,  coming  from  the  north,  completed  the 
subjugation  of  Gaul,  the  Benedictines  were  about  to  approach 
from  the  south,  and  superimpose  a  pacific  and  beneficent 
dominion  upon  the  Germanic  Barbarian  conquest.  The 
junction  and  union  of  these  forces,  so  unequal  in  their 
civilising  power,  were  destined  to  exercise  a  sovereign 
influence  over  the  future  of  our  country. 

II. — Arrival  of  the  Benedictines  in  Gaul. 

The  fame  of  Benedict  and  his  work  had  not  been  slow 
to  cross  the  frontiers  of  Italy;  it  resounded  specially  into 
Gaul.  A  year  before  the  death  of  the  patriarch,  two  envoys 
arrived  at  Monte  Cassino  from  the  Gallo-Roman  prelate. 
Innocent,  Bishop  of  Mans,  who,  not  content  with  forty 
monasteries  which  had  arisen  during  his  episcopacy  in  the 
country  of  the  Oenomans,  still  desired  to  see  his  diocese 
enriched  by  a  colony  formed  by  the  disciples  of  the  new 
legislator  of  cenobites  in  Italy.  Benedict  confided  this 
mission  to  the  dearest  and  most  fervent  of  his  disciples,  a 
young  deacon  named  Maurus,  of  patrician  origin  like  him- 
self, who  had  worthily  prepared  himself  for  these  distant 
labours  by  outdoing  the  austerities  of  the  Rule,  and  who 
seemed  to  be  regarded  by  the  whole  community  as  the 
natural  successor  of  their  founder.  He  gave  him  four 
companions  (one  of  whom  has  written  the  history  of  the 
mission  ^),  and   bestowed    upon  him    a    copy  of   the    Rule, 

1  The  Life  of  St.  Maur,  by  his  companion,  Faustus,  has  suffered  some 
grievous  interpolations  in  the  ninth  century,  according  to  the  Acta 
Sanctorum  Ordinis  S.  Benedicti,  by  D'Achery  and  Mabillon.  Father  Pape- 
broch  (ap.  Bolland.  d.  i6  and  22  May)  regards  it  as  completely  menda- 
cious.    But  the  authenticity  of  his  mission,  and  of  the  principal  features 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  I  27 

written  with  his  own  hand,  together  with  the  weights  for 
the  bread  and  the  measure  for  the  wine  which  should  be 
allotted  to  each  monk  every  day,  to  serve  as  unchanging 
types  of  that  abstinence  which  was  to  be  one  of  the  strongest 
points  of  the  new  institution. 

At  the  head  of  this  handful  of  missionaries,  who  went  to 
sow  afar  the  seed  destined  to  produce  so  great  a  harvest, 
Maurus  came  down  from  Monte  Cassino,  crossed  Italy  and 
the  Alps,  paused  at  Agaune,  the  sanctuary  which  the  Bur- 
gundian  monarch  had  just  raised  over  the  relics  of  the  Theban 
legion,^  then  went  into  the  Jura  to  visit  the  colonies  of  Condat, 
and  doubtless  to  make  the  rule  of  his  master  known  there. 
Arrived  upon  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  and  repulsed  by  the 
successor  of  the  bishop  who  had  called  him,  he  stopped  in 
Anjou,  which  was  then  governed  by  a  viscount  called  Floras, 
in  the  name  and  under  the  authority  of  the  king  of  Austrasia, 
Theodebert,  the  grandson  of  Clovis.  This  viscount  offered 
one  of  his  estates  to  the  disciple  of  Benedict,  that  he  might 
establish  his  colony  there,  besides  giving  one  of  his  sons  to 
become  a  monk,  and  announcing  his  own  intention  of  con- 
secrating himself  to  God.  Maurus  accepted  the  gift,  but 
only  by  a  formal  donation,  and  before  witnesses ;  "  for,"  he 
said  to  the  Frank  lord,  "  our  observances  require  peace  and 
security  above  all."  "     In  this  estate,  bathed  by  the  waters  of 

of  his  biography,  contested  by  Basnage  and  Baillet,  has  been  victoriously 
demonstrated  by  Mabillon  himself  (/Vce/.  in  Sac.  I.,  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.),  and, 
above  all,  by  Dom  Ruinart  in  the  Appendix  of  Vol.  I.  of  the  Annales  Bene- 
dictines of  Mabillon.  Compare,  also,  the  learned  Histoire  des  Eveques  du 
Mans,  by  Dom  Piolin,  a  Benedictine  of  Solesmes,  185 1,  t.  i.  p.  237.  This 
last  work  includes  some  very  valuable  details  on  the  propagation  of  cloistral 
life  in  Maine  during  the  sixth  century. 

i  See  above,  vol.  i.  p.  370. 

2  "  Observatio  Ordinis  nostri  summam  deposcit  quietem  et  securitatem. 
.  .  .  Te  tradente  nobis  coram  testibus.  .  .  .  Scripto  Testamento  tradidit 
ei  omnia  et  de  suo  jure  in  ejus  delegavit  potestatem  atque  dominium." — 
Vit.  S.  Mauri,  c.  42,  43.  This  passage  may  be  one  of  the  interpolations  of 
the  ninth  century  pointed  out  by  Mabillon  ;  nevertheless,  we  have  instanced 
it  as  one  of  the  first  examples  of  the  forms  employed  for  donations  of  this 
nature,  so  numerous  subsequent  to  the  sixth  century  in  Gaul. 


128  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

the  Loire,  he  founded  the  monastery  of  Glanfeuil,  which 
afterwards  took  his  own  name.^  The  site  of  this  monastery, 
now  lost  among  the  vineyards  of  Anjou,  merits  the  grateful 
glance  of  every  traveller  who  is  not  insensible  to  the  advan- 
tages which  flowed  from  that  first  Benedictine  colony  over 
entire  France. 

With  a  touching  and  legitimate  reminiscence  of  ancient 
monastic  glory,  Maurus  consecrated  one  of  the  four  churches 
or  chapels  of  his  new  abbey  to  St.  Martin,  who  had  founded, 
at  no  great  distance  and  on  the  banks  of  the  same  river,  the 
still  celebrated  sanctuary  of  Marmoutier,^  and  another  to  St. 
Severin,  that  Roman  monk  who,  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube, 
subdued  the  ferocity  of  the  Barbarians  while  he  blessed  the 
future  of  Odoacer.  The  beloved  son  of  St.  Benedict  spent 
forty  years  at  the  head  of  his  French  colony  :  he  saw  as 
many  as  a  hundred  and  forty  monks  officiate  there  ;  and 
when  he  died,  after  having  lived  apart  for  two  years  in  an 
isolated  cell,  to  prepare  himself  in  silence  for  appearing 
before  God,^  he  had  dropped  into  the  soil  of  Gaul  a  germ 
which  could  neither  perish  nor  be  exhausted  ;  and  which,  a 
thousand  years  after,  was  to  produce  under  the  very  name 
of  the  modest  founder  of  Glanfeuil  a  new  efflorescence  of  mon- 
astic genius,  destined  to  become  the  synonym  of  laborious 
learning,  and  one  of  the  most  undisputed  glories  of  France.* 

1  St.  Maur-sur-Loire.  The  relics  of  Maurus  remained  there  until  the  ninth 
century,  when,  for  fear  of  the  Normans,  they  were  transferred  to  St.  Maur- 
les-Fosses,  near  Paris,  another  monastery  which  will  be  often  mentioned. 

'  See  vol.  i.  p.  344.  To  judge  of  the  influence  which  was  exercised  over 
Gaul  by  the  great  Martin,  founder  of  Marmoutier,  two  centuries  after  his 
lifetime,  we  must  read  the  four  books  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  entitled  Dc 
Miraculis  S.  Martini,  of  which  the  SocUU  de  VHistoire  de  France  has  just 
published  a  new  edition,  revised  by  M.  Bordier. 

3  "  Biennio  ante  mortem  siluit  sejunctus  ab  hominibus,  et  solus  in  superni 
inspectoris  oculis  habitavit  secum." — Breviarium  Monasticum. 

*  The  brotherhood  of  St.  Maur,  immortalised  by  the  works  of  Mabillon, 
Montfaucon,  Ruinart,  and  many  others,  was  created  in  1618.  It  sprang 
from  the  association  formed  by  various  very  ancient  abbeys  for  the  adop- 
tion of  the  reform  introduced  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  the 
monasteries  of  Lorraine  by  Dom  Didier  de  la  Cour,  abbot  of  St.  Vanne. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 29 

A  certain  obscurity  hangs  over  the  early  progress  of  the 
Benedictine  rule  in  Gaul  after  the  first  foundation  of  St. 
Maur.  We  have  already  pointed  out  the  progress  of  ceno- 
bitical  life  due  to  the  great  schools  of  Marmoutier,  Lerins, 
and  Condat,  before  the  age  of  St.  Benedict.  This  progress 
did  not  diminish  after  him,  since  eighty  new  establishments 
can  be  reckoned  during  the  course  of  the  sixth  century  alone 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Saone  and  Rhone,  ninety-four  between 
the  Pyrenees  and  the  Loire,  fifty-four  from  the  Loire  to  the 
Vosges,  and  ten  from  the  Vosges  to  the  Rhine.^  This  was 
a  renewed  and  more  complete  conversion  of  that  great  country. 
Each  province  by  degrees  received  for  its  apostles  holy  monks, 
who  were  also  often  bishops,  and  who  founded  at  the  same 
time  dioceses  and  monasteries,  the  latter  destined  to  be  cita- 
dels and  nurseries  of  the  diocesan  clergy.^ 

The  councils  of  the  Gauls  were  more  and  more  frequently 
occupied  with  questions  of  monastic  discipline,  without, 
however,  noting  any  special  congregation.  They  showed 
themselves  animated  by  the  spirit  which  dictated  the  famous 
canon  of  the  General  Council  of  Chalcedon  in  451,  in  virtue 
of  which  monks  were  placed  under  the  control  of  bishops. 
That  of  Agde,  in  511,  renewed  the  prohibition  against 
founding  new  monasteries  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
bishop.  Those  of  Orleans  (5 1 1,  and  especially  533),  of 
Epaone  (517),  and  of  Aries  (558),  completely  subjected 
monasteries  to  the  authority  and  superintendence  of  the 
bishops.  The  abbots  could  neither  be  absent  nor  dispose 
of  any  of  the  property  of  the  community  without  episcopal 
permission  ;  once  a  year  they  were  to  wait  upon  their 
bishop  to  receive  his  advice,  and  if  need  were  his  correc- 
tions.^    The  Council  held  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  Martin  at 

1  M.  Mignet  has  taken  these  numbers  from  the  Benedictine  Annals  of 
MabUlon.  See  his  fine  M6moire  sur  la  Conversion  cle  VAllemagne  par  les 
Moines,  p.  32. 

^  "  Ut  urbis  esset  munimentum."—  Vie  de  S.  Bomnole,  bishop  and  founder 
of  St.  Vincent-du-Mans,  c.  4,  ap.  Bolland.,  16  Mali. 

*  Concil.  Aurel.,  an.  511,  c.  19. 
VOL.  II.  I 


I30  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

Tours,  in  567,  which  quotes  Seneca  in  its  fourteenth  Canon 
in  favour  of  the  precautions  to  be  taken  against  the  scandal 
of  incontinence,  pronounces  the  penalty  of  excommunication 
in  Canon  XV.  against  every  monk  who  should  marry,  and 
against  every  judge  who  should  refuse  to  declare  the  dis- 
solution of  such  a  marriage.  But  by  the  great  number  of 
different  rules  and  successive  reforms,  and  still  more  by  the 
narratives  of  violence  and  abuse  which  Gregory  of  Tours  has 
honestly  transmitted  to  us,  the  resistance  met  with  by  the 
Christian  ideal  of  monastic  life  may  well  be  understood. 

How  did  all  these  communities,  so  numerous  and  diverse, 
come  to  recognise  the  Benedictine  Eule  as  that  which  was 
to  ensure  their  existence  and  prosperity  ?  This  can  only  be 
discovered  in  some  houses  more  or  less  celebrated.  It  was 
not  the  work  of  one  of  those  sudden,  radical,  and  ephemeral 
transformations  to  which  modern  history  has  accustomed 
us  ;  it  was  the  slow  and  instinctive  progress  of  an  insti- 
tution which  sought  the  conditions  of  permanent  durability. 
The  conquest  was  made  gradually  and  imperceptibly.'^  But 
it  is  undeniable  that  this  progress  was  universal,  despite  the 
formidable  rivalry  of  the  Eule  of  St.  Columba ;  and  not  less 
undeniable  is  the  fact,  that  the  mission  of  St.  Maurus  was 
the  channel  by  which  the  sovereign  paternity  of  the  Italian 
legislator  extended  by  degrees  to  all  the  monasteries  of  Gaul.^ 

This  mission  marks  out  besides,  in  history,  the  first  en- 
counter of  the  Benedictine  order  with  that  French  monarchy, 

^  "  Nunquam  nobis  venit  in  mentem  ut  asserere  velimus  omnia  aut 
pleraque  Galliarum  monasteria,  adveniente  Mauro,  Benedictinam  regu- 
1am  statim  admisisse.  .  .  .  Quai  postea  sensim  sine  sensu  ita  per  alia 
monasteria  sequentibus  annis  propagata  fuerit,  donee  tandem  sola 
prasvaluerit  in  toto  Galliarum  imperio." — D.  Ruin  art,  in  Append.  Annal. 
Bened.,  torn.  1.  p.  636. 

"  The  formal  testimony  of  St.  Odillon,  the  celebrated  abbot  of  Cluny, 
is  as  follows  :  "  Post  Sancti  Benedict!  ex  hac  vita  migrationem,  per 
Beatum  Maurum  illius  discipulum  omnis  pene  Gallia  ejus  institutiones  et 
religionis  instituta  suscepit,  atque  per  eumdem  Maurem,  eosque  quos  ille 
ad  justitiam  erudivit,  per  longa  temporum  spatia,  eadem  religio  ad  perfec- 
tionis  cumulum  excrevit." — Odilo,   Vit.  S.  Maioli,  ap.  Surium,  11  Mali. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  13! 

then  only  dawning  under  the  shield  of  Clovis  and  his  de- 
scendants, but  which  we  shall  see  through  many  centuries 
the  faithful  and  grateful  ally  of  the  sons  of  St.  Benedict. 
The  district  of  Anjou  in  which  Glanfeuil  was  situated  fell 
to  the  lot  of  that  grandson  of  Clovis,  named  Theodebert/ 
who  reigned  at  Metz  and  over  Austrasia.  It  was  he  from 
whom  the  Viscount  Florus,  according  to  tradition,  had  to 
obtain,  first  the  necessary  authority  for  the  establishment 
of  the  foreign  monks,  and  then  permission  to  enrol  himself 
among  them.  This  king,  celebrated  in  the  history  of  the 
Merovingians  for  his  exploits  in  Aquitaine  against  the  Visi- 
goths, and  in  Italy  against  the  imperial  forces,  consented 
very  reluctantly  to  part  with  one  of  his  principal  officers, 
and  only  after  having  himself  visited  the  new  colony.  He 
came  with  all  the  pomp  which  the  race  of  Clovis  were  so 
prompt  to  borrow  from  the  fallen  empire ;  but,  clothed  in 
his  purple  as  he  was,  as  soon  as  he  perceived  Maur,  the 
Frank  king  prostrated  himself  before  the  Roman  monk,  as 
Totila  prostrated  himself  before  Benedict,  entreating  the 
abbot  to  pray  for  him,  and  to  inscribe  his  name  among  those 
of  the  brethren.  He  presented  his  young  son  to  the  com- 
munity, desired  that  the  monks  who  had  come  from  Monte 
Cassino  with  the  abbot  might  be  specially  pointed  out  to 

^  Professor  Roth,  in  his  important  work  entitled  Geschichte  der  Beneficial- 
wesens  (Erlangen,  1850,  p.  440),  takes  pains  to  show  the  fictitious  character 
of  this  narrative,  grounding  his  argument  on  the  fact  that,  in  the  division 
of  Gaul  among  the  Frankish  kings,  Anjou  belonged,  not  to  Theodebert, 
but  to  Childebert,  and  that  this  province  only  fell  at  a  later  period  into 
the  hands  of  a  king  of  Austrasia  of  the  same  name,  Theodebert  II.,  who 
reigned  from  596  to  602.  But  we  can  answer  with  Ruinart,  that  nothing 
is  less  certain  than  the  exact  limitation  of  the  provinces  with  which  the 
sons  of  Clovis  constituted  the  different  parts  of  their  kingdoms,  and 
nothing  more  strange  than  the  subdivision  of  all  the  territory  situated 
south  of  the  Loire.  Another  learned  contemporary  who  has  devoted  his 
attention  to  the  origin  of  Frank  royalty,  Professor  Leo,  proves  that 
Thierry,  the  father  of  Theodebert,  and  the  eldest  of  the  sons  of  Clovis, 
exercised  a  sort  of  sovereignty  over  the  estates  of  his  brothers,  and  that 
his  possessions  surrounded  all  parts  of  the  patrimonies  of  the  latter. — See 
Des  Deutschen  Volkes  Ursprung  und  Werden,  1854,  p.  353. 


132  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

him,  asked  their  names,  and  embraced  them  and  also  their 
brethren.  Then  he  surveyed  the  monastic  precincts,  ate 
with  the  monks  in  the  refectory,  and  before  he  went  away, 
desired  that  the  chief  of  his  scribes  should  make  out  on  the 
spot,  and  seal  with  his  ring,  the  donation  of  an  estate  be- 
longing to  the  crown,  which  he  intended  to  bestow  on  the 
monastery.  Florus  afterwards  obtained  the  king's  consent 
to  witness  his  profession  as  a  monk.  After  having  added 
new  gifts  to  his  first  donation,  the  viscount  freed  and  por- 
tioned twenty  of  his  slaves  ;  then,  having  laid  his  military 
sword-belt  on  the  altar,  he  knelt  before  the  king,  who,  at 
the  request  of  the  abbot,  cut  the  first  lock  of  his  hair ;  the 
tonsure  was  then  completed  by  the  other  nobles  present. 
Before  leaving  the  monastery  the  king  desired  to  see  his  old 
friend  in  the  monastic  dress ;  he  exhorted  him  to  do  honour 
to  that  new  habit,  as  he  had  done  honour  to  secular  life,  then 
threw  himself  into  the  arras  of  Florus  and  wept  there  before 
he  withdrew,  carrying  with  him  the  benediction  of  the  abbot. ^ 

Thus  the  Frank  king  and  the  Benedictine  became  ac- 
quainted with  each  other,  and  these  two  forces  which  were 
to  found  France,  to  direct  and  represent  her  during  long 
centuries,  stood  face  to  face  for  the  first  time. 

Admitting  even  that  this  tale  may  have  been  embel- 
lished, in  its  minute  details,  by  the  imagination  of  after 
ages,  it  is  worthy  of  being  remembered  as  a  sort  of  type  of 
those  intimate  and  cordial  relations  which  began  to  exist 
from  that  time  between  the  princes  of  Germanic  race  and 
the  monks,  and  which  are  to  be  found  almost  on  every  page 
of  their  double  history. 

^  "  Regali  indutus  purpura  humiliter  prost  ratus.  .  .  .  Qui  cum  nos  digito 
designasset,  in  parte  nos  stare  praecipiens,  intuebatur  attentius,  nomen 
unius  cujusque  sciscitans.  .  .  .  Ansebaldum,  qui  scriptoribus  testamen- 
torum  regalium  prseerat  .  .  .  ut  de  ejus  annulo  regali  firmaret  more.  .  .  . 
Cingulum  militise  .  .  .  super  altare  mittens.  .  .  .  Rex  primus  de  coma 
capitis  ejus  totondit.  .  .  .  Florum  sibi  amantissimum  ad  se  deduci  prse- 
cepit,  qui  .  .  .  monachali  jam  indutus  habitu  .  .  .  diutius  in  osculis  ejus 
immoratur."— Faustus,  Vit.  S.  Mauri,  c.  49-52. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 33 


III. — Previous  Kelations  between  the  Merovingians 
AND  THE  Monks. 

God  hath  not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear  ;  but  of  power,  and  of 
love,  and  of  a  sound  mind.— 2  Tim.  i.  7. 

This  was  not,  however,  the  first  time  that  the  Mero- 
vingians had  met  the  monks  on  their  way.  By  the 
side  of  bishops,  who  personified  the  gentle  and  strong 
majesty  of  the  Church,  and  whose  children  the  Franks 
had  just  declared  themselves  to  be,  they  had  everywhere 
discovered,  sometimes,  isolated  recluses,  sometimes  monks 
living  in  a  community  whose  strange  privations,  painful 
labours,  and  irreproachable  virtues  bore  eloquent  witness 
to  the  moral  grandeur  of  Christian  doctrines.  The  life  of 
these  kings,  divided  between  war  and  the  chase,  brought 
them  perpetually  in  contact  with  those  whom  all  the  world 
agreed  in  calling  men  of  God,  whether  in  the  towns  and 
rural  districts  ravaged  by  their  soldiers,  or  in  the  forests 
hunted  by  their  hounds.  In  spite  of  all  we  have  said 
regarding  the  strange  and  hateful  mixture  of  deceit  and 
ferocity,  wild  incontinence  and  savage  pride,  which  charac- 
terised the  Merovingian  princes,  in  spite  of  the  fatal  alloy 
which  Gallo- Roman  corruption,  immediately  after  their 
conversion  and  conquest,  added  to  the  traditional  barbarity 
of  the  race,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  the  sincerity  of  their 
faith,  and  the  influence  which  Christian  virtue  and  penitence 
almost  always  exercised  upon  them.  They  passed  with  a 
rapidity  which  now  seems  incomprehensible  from  the  atro- 
cious excesses  of  their  native  cruelty  to  passionate  demon- 
strations of  contrition  and  humility.  After  having  directed 
massacres  or  executions  which  rank  among  the  most  odious 
recollections  of  history,  we  see  them  listening  with  respect, 
and  pardoning  without  difficulty  the  warning  of  a  bold  chief, 
or  still  more  frequently  of  a  pontiff  or  monk.  For  it  was 
almost  always  monks  or  bishops  who  had  been  trained  in 


134  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

cloistral  life,  who  drew  from  them,  in  the  name  of  God,  a 
tardy  and  incomplete  homage  to  justice  and  humanity. 

Clovis  himself  paid  repeated  tribute  to  these  virtues. 
The  foundation  of  several  abbeys  has  been  attributed  to 
him,  though  without  sufficient  proof.^  But  one  charter  of 
his  is  received  as  authentic,  in  which  a  profession  of  his 
faith  in  the  indivisible  and  co-substantial  Trinity,  which 
proves  his  title  to  be  considered  the  sole  Catholic  king 
existing  in  Christendom,  which  was  then  wasted  by  Arian- 
ism,  precedes  a  grant  of  land  and  an  exemption  from  imposts 
in  favour  of  a  monastery  near  Orleans,  which  soon  became 
celebrated  under  the  name  of  Micy,  and  then  of  St.  Mesmin. 
This  last  name  was  derived  from  Maximin,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  little  colony  of  Arverne  monks,  whom  Clovis 
established  there  under  the  direction  of  the  holy  priest 
Euspicius,  who  had  gained  his  heart  at  the  siege  of  Verdun, 
by  his  mission  into  the  besieging  camp  itself  to  implore 
mercy  for  the  Gallo-Eoman  insurgents  in  that  town.^  He 
had  given  them  an  estate  belonging  to  the  royal  fiscus  or 
treasury,  situated  at  the  point  of  the  peninsula  formed  by 
the  Loire  and  Loiret  at  the  junction  of  their  waters,  in 
order,  as  his  charter  states,  that  these  Religious  should  be 
no  longer  strangers  and  travellers  among  the  Franks.^ 

^  Molosme,  St.  Michael  of  Tonnerre,  Nesle,  &c. 

*  Vit.  S.  Maximiiii,  abb.  Miciac,  n.  4  to  9.  Ap.  ACT.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  i. 
p.  564,  ed.  Venet. 

^  "Inter  Francos  peregrini." — Brequigny,  who,  in  his  great  collection 
(Diplomata  Chartce,  (kc.,  t.  i.,  Preface,  p.  8;  Paris,  1791,  folio),  disputes  all 
the  diplomas  attributed  to  Clovis  for  Reomaus,  St.  Pierre-le-Vif,  &c., 
acknowledges  the  authenticity  of  that  given  by  Clovis  to  St.  Euspicius 
and  to  St.  Maximin  for  Micy.  The  memory  of  this  famous  abbey  has  been 
revived  in  our  days  by  the  secondary  seminary  of  the  diocese  of  Orleans, 
established  at  La  Chapelle  St.  Mesmin,  not  far  from  the  site  of  Micy. 
On  the  opposite  shore  of  the  Loire,  by  an  example  of  respect  for  antiquity 
very  rare  among  us,  the  grotto  where  the  body  of  St.  Maximin  was  de- 
posited has  been  restored  and  preserved  by  the  care  of  M.  Collin,  chief 
engineer  of  the  navigation  of  the  Loire,  and  has  been  since  devoted  to 
divine  service,  and  inaugurated  by  M.  Dupanloup,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  13th 
June  1858. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  135 

A  legend  long  popular  in  Touraine  declares  the  fine 
abbatial  Church  of  St.  Julian,  near  Tours,  to  mark  the  spot 
where  the  conqueror  of  the  Visigoths  stopped  to  bestow 
his  alms,  when,  on  horseback  and  with  the  crown  on  his 
head,  he  came  to  offer  thanksgivings  to  St.  Martin  for  his 
victory  at  Vouill^.^ 

Another  tradition,  recorded  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  shows 
still  better  the  feeling  which  consoled  and  animated  the 
inhabitants  of  Gaul,  when  they  saw  their  dreaded  conquerors 
bow  before  the  sanctity  of  monks  of  their  own  race.  This 
tradition  relates  that,  during  the  march  of  the  army  of 
Clovis  across  Poitou  to  encounter  Alaric,  a  band  of  Franks 
attacked  a  monastery,  governed  by  a  holy  monk  named 
Maxentius,^  from  Agde  in  Septimania ;  one  of  the  Bar- 
barians had  raised  his  sword  to  kill  the  abbot,  when  his 
arm  was  suddenly  paralysed,  and  his  companions  were 
struck  with  blindness  around  him.  Clovis,  when  he  heard 
of  the  miracle,  hastened  to  the  monk,  and,  on  his  knees, 
begged  mercy  for  the  assassins.^  The  spot  where  the 
victor  of  Syagrius  and  Alaric  knelt  before  a  Gallo-Eoman 
monk,  and  acknowledged  a  force  more  invincible  than  all 
the  Eoman  or  Barbarian  arms,  was  shown  for  several  cen- 
turies in  the  church  of  the  monastery. 

But  it  was  not  always  with  such  impunity  that  the  monks 
were  exposed  to  contact  with  their  ferocious  conquerors,  and 
evil  often  fell  upon  them  while  representing  religion,  with 
all  the  benefits  and  progress  that  flowed  from  it,  to  the  eyes 
of  the  sanguinary  and  covetous  hordes,  whose  fury  might 
sometimes  be  repressed  by  the  power  of  a  Clovis,  but  whose 
chiefs  were  ordinarily  the  first  to  give  the  example  of  vio- 
lence.     These   Franks  who  were  so  zealous  for  orthodoxy, 

1  Martyrology  of  1469,  quoted  by  Salmon,  Recueil  des  Chroniques  de 
Touraine,  p.  53. 

2  This  monastery  has  become  the  town  of  St.  Maixent  (Deux  Sevres). 

3  "  Qui  locus  in  quo  idem  princeps  ad  pedes  sancti  viri  jacuerat  in  eodem 
monasterio  usque  in  hodiernum  diem  apparet." — Act.  SS.  Bolland.,  d.  25 
Junii,  p.  172.     Compare  GREG.  TUE.,  BisL,  lib.  ii.  c.  37. 


136  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

and  who  boasted  of  fighting  for  the  Church  against  the 
Burgundians  and  Arian  Visigoths,  did  not  hesitate  when 
their  passions  were  inflamed  to  subject  the  most  orthodox 
priests  and  monks  to  barbarous  usage.  Thus  we  see,  in  one 
of  their  invasions  of  Burgundy,  a  solitary  of  the  famous 
monastery  of  the  island  Barbe,  on  the  Saone  near  Lyons, 
given  up  to  the  most  cruel  tortures  by  a  detachment  of 
Franks  who  had  invaded  that  sanctuary,  called  by  some  the 
most  ancient  in  Gaul.  His  name  was  Leobin,  and  he  had 
been  a  shepherd  before  he  became  a  monk.  All  the  other 
Religious  had  fled  except  himself  and  another  old  monk, 
who,  urged  by  the  invaders  to  show  them  where  the  wealth 
of  the  monastery  was  hidden,  answered  that  he  did  not 
know,  but  that  Leobin  was  acquainted  with  everything. 
The  Franks,  finding  that  Leobin  would  not  answer  their 
questions,  put  him  to  the  torture  with  an  ingenious  cruelty 
which  seems  to  have  been  borrowed  rather  from  Oriental 
than  Germanic  habits.  They  tied  cords  tightly  round  his 
head,  beat  him  upon  the  soles  of  his  feet,  plunged  him  over 
and  over  again  into  the  water,  drawing  him  out  only  when 
he  was  almost  suffocated.  The  courageous  monk  resisted  all 
these  agonies  without  speaking.  Then  they  left  him  more 
dead  than  alive.  He  recovered,  however,  and  was  called 
some  years  after  to  the  episcopal  see  of  Chartres,  by  Childe- 
bert,  one  of  the  sons  of  Clovis,  who  had  himself  led  the  attack 
to  which  the  pious  bishop  had  all  but  fallen  victim.'^ 

Clovis  had  a  sister  named  Albofled,  who,  baptized  at  the 
same  time  as  himself,  had  embraced  conventual  life.  She 
died  soon  after,  and  Clovis  lamented  her  so  deeply  that  St. 
Remy  had  to  remind  him  of  the  duties  of  his  royal  charge. 
"  There  is  no  room,"  wrote  the  apostle  of  the  Franks,  "  for 
lamenting  that  sister  whose  virginal  flower  spreads  forth  its 

1  "  Dum  Francorum  dura  ferocitatis  contra  Burgundiones  bella  concita- 
ret.  .  .  ."—Vit.  S.  Leobini,  c.  5-14  ;  ap.  ACT.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  Clovis  himself 
invaded  Burgundy  in  500  ;  his  sons  in  523  and  in  532.  St.  Leobin  having 
become  bishop  in  547,  it  is  probable  that  his  adventure  at  the  Ile-Barbe 
relates  to  the  last  of  these  invasions,  directed  by  Clotaire  and  Childebert. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  137 

perfume  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  who  has  received  a 
celestial  crown  as  the  reward  of  her  virginity.  My  lord, 
chase  this  grief  from  your  heart,  your  kingdom  remains  to 
you  to  be  governed.  You  are  the  head  of  nations,  and  the 
weight  of  their  government  lies  upon  you." 

He  had  also  a  daughter  called  Theodechild,  who  also,  as 
it  is  supposed,  consecrated  her  virginity  to  God.  Her 
existence  can  be  traced  only  by  some  scanty  lines  in  the 
works  of  Gregory  of  Tours  and  the  other  chronicles  of  the 
time.  They  permit  us  to  salute  her  in  passing  as  a  sweet 
and  consoling  apparition  amid  the  horrors  and  violence  of 
the  age  in  which  she  lived.  She  founded  near  the  Gallo- 
Roman  cathedral  city  of  Sens  a  monastery  in  honour  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  in  imitation  of  that  which  her  father 
and  mother  had  built  near  Paris,  to  the  south  of  the  Seine, 
and  where  St.  Genevieve  was  buried.  Theodechild  estab- 
lished monks  in  this  foundation,  which  since  took  the  name 
of  St.  Pierre-le-Vif ;  she  chose  her  burial-place  there,  after 
having  made  a  grant  to  them  of  all  that  she  had  possessed 
or  acquired  in  France  and  Aquitaine — that  is,  on  both  sides 
of  the  Loire."      An  act  of  generous  pity  on  the  part  of  the 

^  "Sacrata  non  est  lugenda,  quie  fragrat  in  conspectu  Domini  flore  vir 
gineo,  et  corona  tecta  quam  pro  virginitate  suscepit.  .  .  .  Dominus  meus 
repelle  de  corde  tuo  tristitiam  .  .  .  regnum  sagacius  gubernate.  .  .  .  Mce 
roris  torpore  discusso  .  .  .  manet  vobis  regnum  administrandum.  .  . 
Populorum  caput  estis  et  regimen  sustinetus." — Ap.  Labbe,  ConcU.,  t.  iv, 
p.  1268.    Compare  S.  Greg.  Tur.,  Hist.,  ii.  31. 

2  "Monachos  ut,  sub  abbatis  imperio,  Deo  cunctis  diebus  deservirent. 
.  .  .  Quidquid  de  possesso  seu  de  acquisito."  This  testament  is  to  be 
found  among  the  collections  of  Odorannus,  a  learned  monk  of  St.  Pierre- 
le-Vif  in  the  eleventh  century,  published  by  Cardinal  Mai,  in  vol.  ix.  of  his 
Spicilegium  Romanum,  p.  62.  Fortunatus,  the  poet  of  the  Merovingian 
princesses,  wrote  the  epitaph  of  Theodechild.  Odorannus  quotes  another 
epitaph  as  follows  : — 

"  Hunc  regina  locum  monachis  construsit  ab  imo 
Theuchildis  rebus  nobilitando  suis. 
Cujus  nunc,  licet  hoc  corpus  claudatur  in  antro, 

Spiritus  astrigero  vivit  in  axe  Deo. 
Implorans  rectis  pastoribus  euge  beatum 
Det  sapientibus  hinc  neumata  digna  Deus  !  " 


138  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

royal  foundress  worthily  inaugurated  the  annals  of  this 
famous  monastery.  Basolus,  who  had  been  named  duke  of 
Aquitaine  by  Gessalic,  king  of  Aquitaine  and  the  Visigoths, 
was  made  prisoner  by  Clovis  in  a  last  combat,  and  was  con- 
ducted chained  to  Sens.  While  his  guards  led  him  to  the 
dungeon  where  he  expected  to  be  put  to  death,  he  met 
Theodechild,  the  daughter  of  his  conqueror,  upon  his  way. 
She  immediately  resolved  to  beg  the  life  and  liberty  of  the 
captive.  Clovis  long  resisted  her  entreaties,  but  yielded  at 
length  on  condition  that  the  vanquished  chief  should  be 
sent  to  the  monastery  which  his  daughter  had  just  estab- 
lished, and  should  have  his  head  shaven  and  become  a 
monk.  Basolus  appears  to  have  adopted  his  new  profession 
willingly,  for  he  gave  to  St.  Peter  all  the  estates  he  pos- 
sessed in  Auvergne,  and  thus  founded  the  monastery  and 
town  of  Mauriac  in  the  mountains  of  Cantal.^ 

These  monasteries  of  Auvergne  and  elsewhere  where  the 
victors  and  vanquished  often  met,  were  already  an  asylum 
for  all  kinds  of  unfortunate  persons.  Gregory  of  Tours  has 
preserved  to  us  the  memory  of  a  young  Arverne  slave,  Por- 
tianus,  who,  flyiug  from  the  severity  of  his  master,  took 
refuge  in  a  monastery  :  the  Barbarian  pursued  and  seized  him, 
but,  being  suddenly  struck  with  blindness,  restored  the  fugi- 
tive to  the  sanctuary  in  order  to  obtain  the  cure  he  desired. 
The  slave  became  a  monk  and  then  abbot,  and  governed 
the  monastery,  from  which  he  came  forth  one  day  to  confront 
and  reprimand  the  French  king  Thierry,  son  of  Clovis,  in  his 
destroying  march  through  Auvergne.^  After  his  death,  the 
abbey,  which  his  sanctity  had  made  illustrious,  took  his  name, 
and  transmitted  it  to  the  existing  town  of  St.  Pourcjain.^ 

It  is  to  Gregory  of  Tours  again  that  we  owe  the  knowledge 

1  "  Mauriac  is  now  an  under-prefecture  of  Cantal.  This  monastery  was 
restored  in  1 100  by  Raoul  of  Escorailles,  who  placed  nuns  there,  stipulating 
that  all  the  abbesses  should  be  chosen  from  his  descendants." — Beanche, 
Monasteres  d' Auvergne,  p.  63.     Compare  Mabillon,  Annal.,  lib.  vi.  c.  30. 

^  Geeg.  Tueon.,   Vit.  Pair.,  0.  5. 

s  A  district  country  town  in  Allier. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  139 

how  Thierry,  king  of  Metz,  the  first-born  of  Clovis,  and 
chief  of  these  Ripuarian  Franks  who  formed  the  kingdom  of 
Austrasia,  father  of  that  Theodebert  who  was  the  protector  of 
St.  Maurus,  received  humbly  the  free  remonstrances  which 
the  abbot  Nizier  addressed  to  him  publicly  against  the  im- 
morality of  his  life.  Far  from  having  any  grudge  against 
him,  this  king  elevated  him  to  the  episcopal  see  of  Treves. 
He  sent  several  of  his  principal  officers  to  the  monastery  to 
bring  the  abbot  to  Treves.  At  the  last  stage  from  the  town, 
these  lords  turned  their  horses  loose  in  the  midst  of  the  har- 
vest. At  this  sight  the  abbot  Nizier  said  to  them  indig- 
nantly, "  Withdraw  your  horses  immediately  from  the  harvest 
of  the  poor,  or  I  will  excommunicate  you."  "  What !  "  said 
the  Franks,  amazed  at  the  boldness  of  the  monk,  "  thou  art 
not  yet  a  bishop,  and  already  thou  threatenest  us  with  excom- 
munication ?  "  "  The  king,"  said  the  monk,  "  has  brought 
me  from  my  monastery  to  make  me  a  bishop  :  let  the  will  of 
God  be  done ;  but  as  for  the  will  of  the  king,  it  shall  not  be 
done  when  it  is  set  upon  evil,  at  least  while  I  can  hinder 
it."  And  thereupon  he  himself  drove  the  horses  out  of  the 
field  which  they  were  destroying.  During  all  his  episcopate, 
King  Thierry  and  his  son  Theodebert,  who  were  of  dissolute 
habits,  like  all  the  Merovingians,  had  to  bear  the  apostolical 
zeal  of  Nizier.  He  always  said,  "  I  am  ready  to  die  for 
justice."  He  also  braved  the  terrible  Clotaire,  to  whom  he 
refused  the  sacraments,  and  whose  death  alone  delivered  him 
from  the  exile  to  which  he  had  been  sentenced.^ 

Clodimir,  king  of  Orleans,  the  second  of  the  sons  of  Clovis, 
was  similarly  confronted  by  the  noble  form  of  a  monk, 
Avitus,  abbot  of  that  monastery  of  Micy,  in  the  Orleannais, 
which   his   father   had    founded,  who    appeared   before   him 

^  "Expellite  quantocius  equos  vesteos  a  segete  pauperis,  alioquin  re- 
movebovos  acommunione  mea.  .  .  .  QuEenam  est  hsec  causa  quam  loqueris  ? 
Adhuc  cum  episcopalem  apicem  non  es  adeptus,  et  jam.  .  .  .  Fiat  voluntas 
Dei :  nam  et  regis  voluntas  in  omnibus  malis,  me  obsistente,  non  adim- 
plebiter.  .  .  .  Libenter  moriar  pro  justitia." — Gbeg.  Tukon.,  De  Vitis 
Patrum,  c.  17. 


I40  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

when,  on  the  eve  of  undertaking  his  second  campaign 
against  the  Burgundians,  he  desired  to  disembarrass  himself 
of  his  prisoner,  King  Sigismund,  who  had  vainly  sought  a 
refuge  in  his  beloved  cloister  of  Agaune.  The  monk  came 
to  remind  him  of  the  rights  of  pity,  and  to  predict  the 
sentence  of  divine  justice.  "  0  king ! "  said  the  abbot, 
"think  of  God:  if  thou  givest  up  thy  project,  if  thou  art 
merciful  to  these  captives,  God  will  be  with  thee,  and  thou 
shalt  conquer  again  ;  but  if  thou  slayest  them,  thou  and  thine 
shall  meet  the  same  fate."  ^  Clodimir  answered,  "  It  is  a 
fool's  advice  to  bid  a  man  leave  his  enemy  behind  him." 
He  killed  Sigismund,  his  wife,  and  two  children,  and  threw 
them  into  a  well.  But  the  prediction  of  Avitus  was  accom- 
plished. Clodimir  was  vanquished  and  slain ;  his  head, 
fixed  at  the  end  of  a  spear,  was  carried  in  triumph  along 
the  Burgundian  ranks.  The  fate  of  his  children  is  known ; 
how  his  brothers  Ohildebert  and  Clotaire,  fortifying  them- 
selves by  an  expression  which  escaped  from  their  mother 
Clotilde,  who  had  said  that  she  would  rather  see  her  grand- 
children dead  than  shaven,^  massacred  the   two  eldest ;   and 

1  "Si  respiciens  Deum  emendaveris  consilium  tuum,  ut  hos  homines 
interfici  non  patriaris,  erit  Deus  tecum."— Greg.  Tue.,  Hist.,  lib.  iii.  c.  5. 

^  It  is  probable  that  this  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  monastic  tonsure, 
but  simply  concerned  the  shortening  of  that  long  hair  which  was,  with 
the  Franks,  as  it  is  with  the  peasant  of  Lower  Brittany  at  the  present 
time,  the  sign  of  freedom,  and  was  a  special  attribute  of  the  Merovingians, 
and  token  of  their  dynasty  and  hereditary  right.  "  Solemne  est  Francorum 
regibus  nunquam  tonderi.  .  .  .  Caesaries  toto  decenter  eis  in  humeros  pro- 
pendet."— Agathi^  Histor.,  ap.  Thierry,  Rdcits  Meroving.,  t.  ii.  p.  17. 
"A  Merovingian  prince  could  suffer  this  temporary  loss  in  two  different 
ways  :  either  the  hair  was  cut  in  the  manner  of  the  Franks— that  is  to 
say,  to  the  top  of  the  neck— or  cut  very  short  in  the  Roman  fashion  ;  and 
this  kind  of  degradation,  more  humiliating  than  the  other,  was  generally 
accompanied  by  the  ecclesiastical  tonsure."— /fitrf.  Moreover,  the  kings 
and  grandees  of  the  Merovingian  era  learned  early  and  practised  often  the 
odious  custom  of  imposing  forced  vocations  on  the  dispossessed  princes, 
and  inflicting  the  tonsure  upon  them  against  their  will.  The  history  of 
Merovee,  son  of  Chilperic,  and  husband  of  Brunehaut,  degraded  by" the 
tonsure  at  the  order  of  Fredegonde,  is  universally  known.  Another  ex- 
ample, still  more  striking,  is  that  of  Thierry  III.,  king  of  Neustria,  deposed 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  I4I 

how  the  third  escaped  their  knife  only  by  receiving  the 
monastic  tonsure  and  the  name  of  St.  Cloud,  one  of  the 
best-known  monastic  names  in  our  history. 

These  ferocious  assassins  nevertheless  yielded  in  their 
turn  to  the  influence  of  the  lessons  and  examples  given 
by  the  monks.  Childebert  especially  would  have  been  the 
monastic  king  par  excellence  could  we  believe  all  the  legends, 
which  probably  concentrate  in  him  various  anecdotes  rela- 
tive to  other  princes  of  the  same  name  or  race.  Some  of 
these  are  worthy  of  recollection  from  their  authentic  indi- 
vidual characteristics,  or  from  the  light  they  throw  on  con- 
temporary history.  Such  a  tale  is  that  which  informs  us 
how  the  first  king  of  Paris,  when  crossing  Berry  to  meet 
the  Visigoths,  paused  at  the  door  of  the  cell  occupied  by 
the  monk  Eusice,  and  offered  to  him  fifty  pieces  of  gold. 
"  Why  do  you  give  this  to  me  ?  "  said  the  old  recluse  ;  "  give 
it  to  the  poor ;  it  is  enough  for  me  to  be  able  to  pray  to 
God  for  my  sins.  However,  march  on,  you  will  be  victorious, 
and  then  you  can  do  all  you  would."  Childebert  bent  his 
heavy  locks  under  the  hand  of  the  solitary  to  receive  his 
blessing,  and  promised,  if  his  prophecy  was  fulfilled,  to  re- 
turn and  build  him  a  church.  The  prediction  was  fulfilled, 
and  the  king  kept  his  promise.  After  he  had  defeated  the 
Visigoths  and  taken  Narbonne  their  capital,  he  built,'^  upon 


in  670  by  the  great  rebels  against  the  tyranny  of  Ebroin,  and  succeeded 
by  his  brother  Childeric  II.  His  brother  asked  him  what  should  be  done 
to  him ;  he  answered,  "  What  they  will  :  unjustly  deposed,  I  wait  the 
judgment  of  the  King  of  heaven."  "Tunc  ad  monasterium  S.  Martyris 
Dionysii  residere  est  jussus  ibique  est  salvatus,  donee  crinem  quem  ampu- 
taverant  enutriret :  et  Deus  coeli,  quem  se  judicem  est  habere  professus, 
feliciter  postmodum  ipsum  permisit  regnare." — Anon.  Jiduen.  Vit.  S.  Leo- 
degarii,  c.  3. 

1  At  Selles  in  Berry,  near  Romorantin.  "  Quid  mihi  ista  prefers  ?  .  .  . 
Vade  et  victoriam  obtinebis,  et  quod  volueris  ages." — Geeg.  Turon.,  Be 
Glor.  Confess.,  c.  82.  "Crinigeram  cervicem  sancti  manibus  .  .  .  inclinat." 
— DOM  Bouquet,  iii.  129.  Eusice  began  his  career  as  a  monk  at  Perrecy, 
in  Burgundy  (Patriciacum),  which  at  a  later  period  became  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  priories  of  the  Benedictine  order. 


142  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

the  banks  of  the  Cher,  a  monastery  and  church,  in  which 
the  solitary  was  buried.  This  donation  was  increased  by 
the  offering  made  by  the  noble  Yulfin,  one  of  the  principal 
Franks  of  the  army,  who,  in  the  distribution  of  rewards  made 
by  Childebert  at  the  end  of  his  campaign,  having  asked  and 
obtained  a  grant  of  crown  lands,  or  what  was  already  called 
an  honour,  upon  the  same  banks  of  the  Cher,  hastened  to 
pay  this  tribute  to  the  holy  monk  by  whose  fame  he  had 
been  fascinated.^ 

This  Eusice  or  Eusitius  must  have  been,  according  to  the 
evidence  of  his  name,  of  Roman  or  Gallo-Roman  origin,  like 
all  the  other  monks  whom  we  have  noted  up  to  this  point ; 
but  Childebert  entertained  friendly  relations  of  the  same 
kind  with  another  monk  whose  name,  Marculph,  points  him 
out  as  a  Frank,  and  who  was  the  first  of  all  the  holy  monks 
whose  name  betrayed  that  origin.^  He  was  of  a  rich  and 
powerful  race  established  in  the  country  of  Bayeux,  and  the 
union  of  the  proud  independence  of  the  Frank  with  the 
rigorous  austerity  of  the  monk  is  everywhere  apparent  in 
the  narrative  of  his  life.  He  had  devoted  the  first  half  of 
his  existence  to  preaching  the  faith  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Cotentin ;  from  thence  we  see  him  set  out,  mounted  on  his 
ass,  to  meet  King  Childebert  on  the  day  of  a  great  festival, 
in  the  midst  of  his  feudal  lords,  and  asking  of  him  a  grant 
of  land  on  which  to  build  a  monastery  where  the  king  and 
the  commonwealth  of  the  Franks  might  be  prayed  for.  It 
was  not  the  habitual  adulation  of  the  Romans  of  the  Lower 
Empire  which  he  used  to  gain  the  monarch's  ear.      "Mercy 


1  "Vulfinus  ejusdem  generis  vir  nobilissimus  .  .  .  remunerationis  suae 
prajmium  .  .  .  prsestolabatur  .  .  .  nihil  petiit  sibi  dari  nisi  super  Chari 
fluvium  quem  rex  habebat  honorem." — Vit.  S.  Eusicii,  ap.  Labbe,  Nov. 
Bibl.MSS.,u.  375. 

2  Among  the  holy  monks  whose  name  indicates  a  German  origin,  I  see 
before  Marculph  or  Marcoul,  who  died  in  558,  only  Theodoric  or  Thierry, 
who  died  in  533,  a  disciple  of  St.  Remy,  the  first  great  abbot  of  the  great 
monastery  near  Reims,  which  retains  his  name,  and  from  which  William 
of  St.  Thierry,  the  annalist  of  the  twelfth  century,  derives  his. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  143 

and  peace  to  thee,  from  Jesus  Ciirist,"  he  said,  "  illustrious 
prince  :  thou  art  seated  on  the  throne  of  royal  majesty,  but 
thou  shouldest  not  forget  that  thou  art  mortal,  and  that 
pride  must  not  make  thee  despise  thy  fellow-creatures. 
Recall  to  thy  mind  that  text  of  the  wise  man :  '  Men  have 
made  thee  a  prince  ;  be  not  exalted,  but  be  as  one  of  them 
in  the  midst  of  them.'  Be  just  even  in  thy  clemency,  and 
mix  pity  even  with  thy  justice."  Childebert  granted  his 
request.  But  scarcely  had  he  accomplished  this  first  foun- 
dation, when,  for  the  better  enjoyment  of  the  charms  of 
solitude,  Marculph  took  refuge  in  an  island  on  the  coast  of 
Brittany,  inhabited  only  by  a  handful  of  fishers.  A  nume- 
rous band  of  Saxon  pirates  having  made  a  descent  upon 
this  island,  the  poor  Bretons  came  trembling  and  kneeling 
to  the  Frank  monk.  "  Be  of  good  courage,"  he  said  to 
them  ;  "  if  you  trust  my  counsel,  take  your  weapons,  march 
against  your  enemy,  and  the  God  who  overthrew  Pharaoh 
will  fight  for  you."  They  listened  to  him,  put  the  Saxons 
to  flight,  and  a  second  foundation  marks  the  spot  of  that 
victory  achieved  over  the  piratical  pagans  by  innocence  and 
faith,  inspired  by  the  courage  of  a  monk.-^ 

These  Saxons  who  troubled  the  solitude  of  the  holy 
Marculph  in  his  island  had  long  invaded  and  sacked  Great 
Britain.      To  escape  from  their  bloody   yoke   an   army   of 

^  "  Ex  nobilissimis  ditissimisque  christianissimis  Bajocassinis  civibus 
exortus.  .  .  .  Asello  cui  sedere  consueverat  ascenso.  .  .  .  Cum  Kex  multa 
suorum  procerum  turba.  .  .  .  Licet  in  solio  majestatis  sedeas,  tamen  te 
unum  mortalium  esse  considerans.  .  .  .  Tibi  subditis  et  cum  justitia 
parcis,  et  cum  pietate  corrigis.  .  .  .  Pro  tua  totiusque  reipublicas  salute 
sedulo  oraturi.  .  .  .  Piratai  ...  ex  inexhaustis  scaturiginibus  gentis 
Saxonicfe  prorumpentes.  ...  Si  meis  vultis  acquiescere  monitis,  arma 
constanter  capessite.  ...  Pro  vobis  ipse  pugnabit,  qui  quondam  Pharao- 
nem,"  &c.—Acta  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  torn.  i.  pp.  120,  124.  This  island,  called 
Agnus  or  Agna  in  the  two  lives  of  St.  Marculph,  is  probably  that  of  Harme 
or  Herms,  near  Guernsey.  The  translation  of  the  relics  of  St.  Marcoul,  in 
the  ninth  century,  proved  the  foundation  of  the  great  monastery  of  Corbeni 
{Corpus  Benedictum),  between  Laon  and  Reims,  where  the  kings  of  France 
went  to  pray  after  their  coronation  and  obtained  power  to  cure  scrofula, 
saying,  "  The  king  touches  thee,  God  cures  thee." 


144  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

British  monks,  guiding  an  entire  tribe  of  men  and  women, 
freemen  and  slaves,  embarked  in  vessels  not  made  of  wood, 
but  of  skins  sewn  together,^  singing  or  rather  howling,  under 
their  full  sails,  the  lamentations  of  the  Psalmist,"  and  came 
to  seek  an  asylum  in  Armorica,  and  make  for  themselves 
another  country.  This  emigration  lasted  more  than  a 
century  ;  and  threw  a  new,  but  equally  Celtic  population 
into  that  portion  of  Gaul  which  Roman  taxation  and 
Barbarian  invasion  had  injured  least,  and  where  the  ancient 
Celtic  worship  had  retained  most  vitality. 

With  the  exception  of  three  or  four  episcopal  cities, 
almost  all  the  Armorican  peninsula  was  still  pagan  in  the 
sixth  century.  All  the  symbols  and  rites,  the  myths  and 
arcanas  of  paganism  seemed  to  be  concentrated  in  that  wild 
and  misty  country,  where  the  avenues  and  circles  of  erect 
stones,  the  dolmens  and  menhirs,  rose,  sometimes  amid  im- 
mense forests  of  oak  and  holly,  or  moors  covered  by  impene- 
trable thickets  of  furze,  sometimes  upon  the   high  granite 


^  "  Quin  et  Armoricus  piratam  Saxona  tractus 
Sperabat  ;  cai  pelle  salum  sulcare  Britannum 
Ludus,  et  assu  to  glaucum  mare  findere  lembo." 

— Sid.  Apollin.,  Paneg.  ad  Avitum,  v.  369. 

Festus  Avienus,  who  lived  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  in  his 
curious  poem,  entitled  Ora  Maritima,  speaks  also  of  these  leather  boats 
used  by  the  British  : — 

"  Navigia  junctis  semper  aptant  pellibus, 
Corioque  vastum  ssepe  percurrunt  salum. " 

— Edit.  Panckoucke,  p.  no. 

Legendary  lore  has  sometimes  transformed  them  into  troughs  of  stone, 
which,  after  having  been  used  as  beds  by  the  holy  missionaries  during 
their  solitary  life  in  Great  Britain,  served  them  as  skiffs  to  cross  the 
British  Channel,  and  land  in  Armorica.  See  the  legends  of  St.  Ninnoc 
and  St.  Budoc,  in  the  Propre  or  special  prayers  of  the  ancient  dioceses  of 
Del  and  Leon.  Albert  le  Grand,  Vie  des  SS.  de  Bretagne,  ed.  Miorcec 
de  Kerdanet,  1839. 

2  "Gum  ululatu  magno  ceu  celeusmatis  vice,  hoc  modo  sub  velorum 
sinibus  cantantes  :  Dedisti  nos  tanquam  oves  esearum." — GiLDAS,  De  Excidio 
BritannicB. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  145 

rocks  of  that  coast,  rent  and  hollowed  out  by  the  unwearied 
ocean  tides  which  beat  upon  it  from  the  north,  south,  and 
west.  In  one  of  the  isles  of  this  extremity  of  Gaul,  Homer 
and  Plutarch  have  placed  the  prison  where  Saturn  was  held 
captive  by  his  son  Jupiter,  under  the  guard  of  the  giant 
Briareus.  Here  too,  according  to  most  of  the  poets,  was 
the  dwelling-place  of  the  genii  and  the  heroes,  the  garden 
of  the  Hesperides  and  the  Elysian  fields.  Elsewhere,  but 
still  in  the  same  archipelago  of  almost  inaccessible  islands, 
the  Druidesses  celebrated  at  night,  and  by  torchlight,  those 
mysteries,  which,  like  those  of  Eleusis  and  Samothrace,  were 
shut  out  from  the  approach  of  man,  and  filled  with  terror 
the  soul  of  the  boatman  who  beheld  them  from  afar.  Human 
sacrifices,  and  especially  those  of  children,  were  practised 
here,  as  among  the  Carthaginians,  in  honour  of  Saturn.-^ 
Other  priestesses,  vowed  like  the  Roman  Vestals  to  per- 
petual virginity,  and,  like  the  German  Velleda,  invested 
with  the  gift  of  prophecy,  raised  and  calmed  the  sea  at  their 
pleasure,  cured  diseases,  and  foretold  future  events  to  those 
who  were  bold  enough  to  consult  them  in  their  island  of 
Sein,  situated  at  the  furthest  point  of  Armorica,  upon 
that  frightful  coast  of  Cornouaille,  bristling  with  rocks,  in 
that  bay  which  is  still  called  the  Bay  of  the  Dead,  and 
where  popular  tradition  sees  the  skeletons  of  the  ship- 
wrecked wandering  by  night  asking  a  shroud  and  a 
grave.  "^ 

Tradition  has  never  failed  to  people  the  coasts  of  Armo- 
rica with  phantoms.  It  was  there,  according  to  Claudian, 
that  Ulysses  ofiered  libations  of  blood  to  the  manes  of 
his  fathers,  troubling  the  repose  of  the  dead  ;  there  that 
the  husbandman  hears  incessantly  the  plaintive  accents 
and  faint  sound  made  by  the  manes  whose  flight  agitates 

1  See  the  legend  of  St.  Riok. 

2  Aetebiidorus,  apud  Strabon.,  lib.  iv.  p.  198 ;  Pomponius  Mela, 
lib.  iii.  c.  6  ;  Hersart  de  la  Villemaeque,  Chants  Popvlaires  de  la 
Bretagne,  t.  ii.,  La  Fiancee  en  Enfer. 

VOL.  II.  K 


146  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

the    air,    and    where    pale    phantoms    wander    before    his 
terrified  eyes. 

"  Est  locus  extremum  qua  pandit  Gallia  littus, 
Oceani  prsetentus  aquis,  ubi  fertur  Ulysses, 
Sanguine  libato,  populum  movisse  silentem. 
Ulic  umbrarum  tenui  stridore  volantum 
riebilis  auditur  questus,  simulacra  coloni 
Pallida  defunctasque  vident  migrare  figuras."  ^ 

This  tradition  lasted  till  the  end  of  the  sixth  century, 
and  extended  to  the  extremities  of  the  Roman  world.  Pro- 
copius,  the  contemporary  of  the  sons  of  Clovis,  narrates 
that  the  fishermen  who  inhabited  these  coasts  had  been 
exempted  by  the  conquering  Franks  from  the  payment  of 
tribute,  because  they  were  obliged  to  convey  the  souls  of 
the  defunct  to  Great  Britain.  "  Towards  midnight,"  says 
the  Byzantine  historian,  "  some  one  knocks  at  their  door ; 
they  are  called  in  a  low  voice  ;  they  rise  and  hasten  to  the 
shore ;  they  find  there  strange  boats,  in  which  they  see  no 
one,  but  which  they  must  row  across  the  sea ;  and  these 
boats  are  so  full  of  invisible  passengers  that  they  seem 
ready  to  sink,  and  are  scarcely  a  finger-breadth  above  the 
level  of  the  water.  In  less  than  an  hour  the  journey  is 
accomplished,  though  in  their  own  boats  they  could  scarcely 
do  it  in  a  night.  Arrived  at  the  end,  the  vessels  are  so 
entirely  emptied  that  you  can  see  their  keel.  All  remain 
invisible ;  but  the  sailors  hear  a  voice  which  calls  the 
travelling  souls  one  by  one,  addressing  each  by  the  title 
which  it  has  borne,  and  adding  to  this  the  name  of  its 
father,  or,  if  a  woman,  of  her  husband."  ^ 

1  In  Rufinum,  lib.  i.  v.  123. 

2  "  Intempesta  nocte  ,  .  .  se  ad  opus  obscura  voce  acciri  audiunt  .  .  . 
apprehendunt  remos  et  naves  sentiunt  tot  vectoribus  onustas  ut  ad  sum- 
mam  usque  tabulam  immersas.  .  .  .  Nullum  vident  nee  navigantem  nee 
navi  egredientem  :  solum  asserunt  audire  se  vocem,  quje  vectorum  singu- 
lorum  nomina  tradere  excipientibus.  ...  Si  qu«  feminse  .  .  .  viros  .  .  , 
nominatim  inclamant." — Pkooop.,  De  Bella  Gothico,  lib.  iv.  c.  20. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  147 

Upon  this  soil,  long  adopted  by  legendary  poetry  as  its 
special  possession,  a  swarm  of  monastic  missionaries  de- 
scended at  the  head  of  a  population  already  Christian.  They 
came  to  ask  shelter  from  their  brethren,  issued  from  the 
same  race  and  speaking  the  same  language.  The  leaders 
of  the  British  monks  who  disembarked  with  their  army  of 
disciples  upon  the  Armorican  shore,  undertook  to  pay  for 
the  hospitality  they  received  by  the  gift  of  the  true  faith, 
and  they  succeeded.  They  gave  their  name  and  worship 
to  their  new  country.  They  preached  Christianity  in  the 
language  common  to  all  the  Celtic  races,  and  resembling 
that  which  is  still  spoken  by  the  peasants  of  Lower  Brittany. 
They  implanted  in  the  Armorican  Britain,  in  this  Brittany 
of  ours,  that  faith  which  remains  so  firmly  rooted  there. 
"  The  sun,"  says  a  Breton  monk  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
apostrophising  one  of  these  prophets  from  beyond  the  sea, 
"  has  never  lighted  a  country  where,  since  you  banished 
idolatry,  the  true  faith  has  been  held  with  more  constant 
and  unchanging  faithfulness.  For  thirteen  centuries  no 
kind  of  infidelity  has  stained  the  language  by  means  of 
which  you  preached  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  man  has  yet  to 
be  born  who  has  heard  a  Breton  preach  in  the  Breton 
tongue  any  other  than  the  Catholic  faith."  ^ 

This  peaceful  conquest  was  not  made  without  resistance. 
The  British  monks  encountered  enemies  upon  the  soil  of 
Gaul  almost  as  terrible  as  those  from  whose  persecution 
they  fled.  Celtic  paganism  defended  itself  desperately.  The 
bards  attempted  to  rouse  the  people  against  the  strangers 
who  audaciously  brought  a  new  religion  into  the  inviolable 
sanctuary  of  Druidism.  The  prophetic  menaces  launched 
by  one  of  these  poets  of  the  old  religion  against  the  new 

1  "  Le  soleil  n'a  jamais  ^clair^  de  canton  oii  ayt  paru  une  plus  constante 
et  invariable  fidelity  dans  la  vraye  foy,  depuis  que  vous  en  avez  banni 
I'idolastrie.  II  y  a  treize  siecles  qu'aucune  espece  d'infidelite  n'a  souill^ 
la  langue  qui  vous  a  servy  d'organe  pour  prescher  Jesus-Christ,  et  il  est  h, 
naistre  qui  ayt  vu  un  Breton  bretonnant  prescher  une  autre  religion  que 
la  Catholique."— Father  MAUNOIR   Epistre  au  glorieux  St.  Corentin,  1659. 


148  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

apostles  has  often  been  quoted  :  "  A  day  comes  when  the 
men  of  Christ  shall  be  pursued,  when  they  shall  be  hunted 
like  deer.  They  shall  die  by  bands  and  battalions.  Then 
the  mill-wheel  shall  grind  small ;  the  blood  of  the  monks 
shall  serve  as  water  to  turn  it."  ^ 

Thirteen  centuries  passed  before  new  pagans,  a  thousand 
times  more  atrocious  and  less  excusable  than  the  compatriots 
of  the  bard  Gwenchlan,  appeared  to  verify  that  prophecy. 
But  in  olden  time  it  seemed  to  die  out  under  the  success 
and  blessings  with  which  the  British  monks  had  covered 
Armorica. 

They  also  carried  with  them  their  poetry,  which  shortly 
superseded  the  Druidical  poetry,  purifying  without  effacing 
it.  For  they  also,  faithful  to  the  immemorial  traditions 
of  the  Celtic  race,  had  bards  in  their  ranks.  The  famous 
Taliesin,  who  took  the  title  of  prince  of  the  bards,  prophets, 
and  Druids  of  the  West,  and  who  is  supposed  to  have  been 
converted  by  the  monk  Gildas,  accompanied  them  into 
Armorica.^  But  bards  who  have  since  taken  their  place 
among  the  Saints  were  pointed  out  among  this  number. 
Such  was  Sulio,  or  Ysulio,  who,  while  still  a  child  playing 
in  the  gardens  of  his  father,  the  Lord  of  Powys,  heard 
monks  passing  harp  in  hand,  singing  the  praises  of  God, 
and  was  so  fascinated  with  the  beauty  of  their  hymns  that 
he  followed  them  to  learn  how  to  compose  and  sing  these 
noble  songs.  His  brothers  hastened  to  announce  his  flight 
to  their  father,  who  sent  thirty  armed  men,  with  orders  to 
slay  the  abbot  and  bring  back  his  son.  But  the  child  had 
already  gone  to  Armorica  and  found  refuge  in  the  monastery 
of  which,  at  a  later  period,  he  was  prior.^ 

^  HersAET  DB  la  VillemaRQUE,  Chants  Populaires  de  la  Bretagne,  vol. 
i.  pp.  20,  38. 

2  INGOMAB,  Vit.  Judicaelis,  apud  D.  MORICE,  Hist,  de  Bretayne,  proofs, 
vol.  i.  Compare  La  Villemarque,  p.  9,  and  Kerdanet,  editor  of  Albert 
LE  Grand,  p.  218. 

^  DOM  LOBINEAU,  Vie  des  Saints  de  Bretagne,  p.  253  ;  La  VillemaEQUE, 
ojo.  cit.,  p.  II. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  149 

Such  was  also  Herve,  whose  name  ought  to  take  place 
among  the  sweetest  recollections  of  Christian  poetry.  He 
was  the  son  of  the  bard  Hyvernion,  who  had  appeared 
among  the  numerous  minstrels  whom  the  Merovingian 
kings  loved  to  collect  round  their  table. ^  This  island  bard 
had  charmed  King  Childebert ;  "  he  was,"  says  the  old 
Breton  legend,  "  so  perfect  a  musician  and  composer  of 
ballads  and  songs."  ^  He  had  come  to  Armorica  to  marry 
a  young  orphan  of  Leon,  whom  an  angel  had  showed  him 
in  a  dream,  saying  to  him,  "  You  shall  meet  her  to-morrow, 
upon  your  way,  near  the  fountain ;  her  name  is  Eivanonn." 
He  met  her  accordingly  ;  she  was  of  the  same  profession  as 
himself,  and  sang,  "  Although  I  am  but  a  poor  flower  on  the 
waterfride,  it  is  I  who  am  called  the  Little  Queen  of  the 
Fountain."  He  married  her,  and  of  this  marriage  was  born 
a  blind  child,  whom  his  parents  named  Herve  (that  is, 
Utter),  and  who,  from  the  age  of  seven,  went  about  the 
country  seeking  alms  and  singing  the  hymns  composed  by 
his  mother.  The  blind  orphan  was  afterwards  initiated  by 
his  uncle  into  cenobitical  life,  and  was  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  school  adjoining  his  monastery,  where  he  could  put 
in  practice  the  aphorism  which  Breton  tradition  ascribes  to 
him,  "  It  is  better  to  instruct  a  little  child  than  to  gather  loealth 
for  him ;  "  ^  and  where  he  taught  his  pupils  songs,  of  which 
the  modern  Breton  still  retains  some  trace  in  the  following 
childish  version : — 

"  Approach,  my  little  children ;  come  and  hear  a  new 
song  which  I  have  composed  expressly  for  you ;  take  pains 
to  remember  it  entirely. 

1  The  Italian  Fortunatus  has  preserved  to  us  the  remembrance  of  these 
concerts,  where,  with  lyre  in  hand,  he  took  his  part,  whilst  "  the  Bar- 
barian," says  he,  "played  on  the  harp,  the  Greek  on  the  instrument  of 
Homer,  and  the  Breton  on  the  Celtic  rote."— La  Villemarque,  Legende 
Celtique,  p.  232. 

2  Albert  le  Grand,  Vie  des  Saints  de  Brctagne,  ed.  Kerdanet,  p.  313. 

2  The  following  is  another  of  his  aphorisms  :  "He  who  does  not  answer 
to  the  rudder  must  answer  to  the  rocks." 


ISO  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

"  When  you  awake  in  your  bed,  oflfer  your  heart  to  the 
good  God,  make  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  say  with  faith, 
hope,  and  love : 

"  Say :  My  God,  I  give  thee  my  heart,  my  body,  and  my 
soul ;  make  me  to  be  a  good  man,  or  else  to  die  before  my 
time. 

"  When  you  see  a  raven  fly,  think  that  the  devil  is  as 
black  and  as  wicked  ;  when  you  see  a  little  white  dove  fly, 
think  that  your  angel  is  as  sweet  and  as  white." 

After  the  conversion  of  the  country,  the  missionary 
bishops,  compatriots  of  the  father  of  Herve,  would  have 
drawn  him  from  his  retreat  to  confer  the  priesthood  upon 
him,  and  to  give  him  a  seat  in  their  synods.  But  he 
always  preferred  his  little  monastery  hidden  in  the  woods. 
Although  blind,  he  had  himself  been  the  architect  of  his 
little  church,  the  care  of  which  he  intrusted  to  a  very 
young  girl,  his  niece  and  cousin,  educated  by  his  mother, 
and  named  Christina,  "  a  Christian  in  name  as  in  fact,"  ^ 
whom  the  Breton  legend,  placing  her  amid  the  disciples 
of  the  saint,  compares  to  a  little  white  dove  among  the 
crows.^  Three  days  before  his  death,  when  secluded  in  the 
church  which  he  had  built,  he  was  thrown  into  an  ecstasy. 
The  eyes  of  the  poor  blind  man  opened  to  contemplate  the 
heaven  over  his  head,  and  he  began  to  sing  a  last  song, 
which  is  still  repeated  in  his  country : — 

"  I  see  heaven  opened ;  heaven,  my  country,  I  would  fly 
to  it.  ...  I  see  there  my  father  and  mother  in  glory  and 
beauty  ;  I  see  my  brethren,  the  men  of  my  own  country. 
Choirs  of  angels,  supported  by  wings,  float  round  their 
heads  like  so  many  bees  in  a  flowery  field." 

The  third  day  after  this  vision,  he  told  Christina  to  make 
his  bed,  not  as  usually,  but  with  a  stone  for  the  pillow  and 
ashes  for  the  couch.  "  When  the  black  angel  shall  come 
to  seek  me,  let  him  find  me  lying  upon  ashes."     Christina, 

^  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  321,  ed.  Miorcec. 
-  La  Villemarque,  p.  279. 


THE   FIKST    MEROVINGIANS  Ijl 

while  she  obeyed,  said  to  him,  "  My  uncle,  if  you  love  me, 
ask  God  that  I  may  follow  you  without  delay,  as  the  boat 
follows  the  current."  Her  prayer  was  granted.  At  the 
moment  when  Herve  expired,  the  little  Christina,  "  throwing 
herself  at  his  feet,  died  there  also."  ^  Herve,  the  blind  monk, 
continues  to  our  own  day  the  patron  of  mendicant  singers, 
who  still  chant  his  legend  in  Breton  verse ;  and  there  has 
long  been  shown,  in  a  little  church  in  Lower  Brittany,  a 
worm-eaten  oaken  cradle,  in  which  the  bard  and  his  poet- 
wife,  whom  God  made  the  parents  of  Herve,  put  him  to 
sleep  with  their  songs. ^  This  poetry  is  surely  of  as  much 
value  as  that  of  Claudian  and  the  Druids. 

But  we  must  leave  the  too  attractive  regions  of  poetry  to 
return  to  the  domain  of  history,  which  is  often,  and  here 
especially,  to  be  distinguished  with  difficulty  from  that  of 
the  legend.  Without  entering  into  details  of  the  immigra- 
tion of  these  Bretons  into  Armorica,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
fifty  years  after  their  appearance  the  Gospel  reigned  in  the 
peninsula.  Monks,  either  cenobites  or  solitary,  held  the 
place  of  all  the  other  clergy  for  several  centuries,  and 
exercised  over  the  soul  and  imagination  of  the  Armorican 
people  a  priestly  empire  which  still  continues.  Innumer- 
able monasteries  rose  on  all  the  principal  points  of  the 
territory,  especially  on  the  sea-coast.  Among  those  which 
date  back  to  this  age,  we  must  note  Khuys,  which  was 
afterwards  made  illustrious  by  becoming  the  retreat  of 
Abelard.  It  was  founded  at  that  time  upon  the  peninsula 
of    Morbihan,    by    one    of   the    most   distinguished    British 

1  Albert  le  Geand,  p.  321. 

2  At  St.  Jean-Keran,  parish  of  Treflaou^nan. 

3  This  beautiful  legend  of  St.  Herve,  which  is  so  popular  in  Bretagne, 
formerly  related  with  charming  simplicity,  from  the  ancient  Breton  brevi- 
aries, by  the  Dominican  Albert  de  Morlaix  (1636),  and  reproduced  after 
him  by  the  BoUandists,  in  volume  v.  of  June,  p.  365,  has  been  recently 
revised,  with  as  much  taste  as  learning,  by  the  Viscount  Hersart  de  la 
Villemarque,  member  of  the  Institute,  in  his  Legende  Celtique  (St.  Brieuc, 
1859).  To  this  is  added  the  Breton  version  of  the  legend  in  verse,  and 
some  poems  attributed  to  the  saint. 


152  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

emigrants,  the  abbot  Gildas,  called  the  Wise,  and  this 
abbey  reckoned  among  its  monks  the  Saxon  Dunstan,  who 
had  been  carried  away  from  his  native  island  by  pirates, 
and  became,  under  the  name  of  Goustan,  the  special  patron 
of  sailors,  as  is  shown  by  the  verses  still  sung  by  the  sailors' 
wives  of  Croisic  : — 

"St.  Goustan 

Notre  ami, 
Ramenez  nos  maris  : 

St.  Goustan 

Notre  amant, 
Ramenez  nos  parents." 

At  the  extreme  point  of  the  peninsula  and  of  Gaul,  on 
the  height  of  the  promontory  so  fitly  named  Finisterre,  rose 
an  abbey  in  honour  of  St.  Matthew  the  Evangelist,  whose 
head  had  been  stolen  from  Egypt  by  the  Armorican  navi- 
gators, and  which  long  bore  the  name  of  St.  Matthew  of  the 
Land's  End,  The  terrible  rocks  at  its  feet  are  still  called 
the  Monks,  and  an  archipelago  of  neighbouring  islands  has 
received  the  Breton  name  of  Aber-Beniguet  (or  Benedict), 
in  memory,  perhaps,  of  the  patriarch  of  the  monks  of  the 
West.  Those  of  St.  Matthew  kept  up  a  lighthouse  for  the 
safety  of  mariners  in  these  dangerous  seas,  opposite  that 
terrible  strait  of  the  Raz,  which  no  man,  according  to  the 
Breton  saying,  ever  passed  without  fear  or  grief,  and  which 
has  inspired  the  well-known  distich  :  "  My  God,  help  me 
to  cross  the  Raz,  for  my  boat  is  so  little,  and  the  sea  is 
so  great."  ^ 

But  the  most  ancient  and  celebrated  of  all  these  sanctu- 
aries was  that  of  Landevenec,  which  became  the  most  active 
centre  for  the  extension  of  Christianity,  as  well  as  of 
manual  and  literary  labour,  in  Western  Gaul.      Its  founder 

^  Albert  le  Grand,  pp.  203  and  209.  Compare  Vie  de  St.  Tanneguy,  p. 
771,  who  founded  this  abbey,  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the 
family  of  Chastel,  of  which  Tanneguy  du  Chastel  was  the  great  repre- 
sentative in  the  fifteenth  century. 


THE    FIRST    MEEOVINGIANS  153 

was  Guennol^,  born  in  Armorica  of  an  emigrant  father, 
who,  after  having  passed  three  years  upon  a  rock  beaten  by 
the  waves,  chose  for  his  disciples  a  wooded  site  hidden  in  a 
creek  of  the  road  of  Brest,  with  an  exposure  towards  the 
rising  sun,  sheltered  from  the  terrible  west  wind,  where  the 
sea  sighed  at  the  feet  of  delicious  gardens.  His  biographer 
has  preserved  to  us  the  impression  made  upon  the  Breton 
monks  by  this  dwelling-place,  which  appeared  a  paradise  to 
them  after  the  bleak  and  cold  coasts  where  they  had  been 
hitherto  established.  "  One  could  not  die  there,"  he  says  ; 
and,  in  order  that  the  Religious  might  see  the  end  of  their 
pilgrimage,  Guennol^  had  to  change  their  habitation  to  a 
site  further  off,  but  still  to  the  east,  where  death  was  re- 
stored to  its  rights,  but  where,  for  long,  the  monks  died 
only  according  to  their  age.-^ 

The  name  of  Guennol^  continues  popular  in  Brittany, 
like  that  of  many  other  holy  abbots,  come  from  beyond 
seas,  or  born  in  Armorica  of  emigrant  parents.  It  is 
impossible  to  enumerate  their  works. ^      Let  us  only  state 

^  "Locus  erat  amcsnissimus,  ab  omni  vento  intangibilis  nisi  ab  orien- 
tali,  velut  quidam  paradisus  ad  ortum  solis  conspicuus.  .  .  .  Primum  per 
annos  singulos  in  flores  et  germina  prorumpens,  ultima  folia  amittens 
.  .  .  hortus  omnigeno  florum  colore  decoratus.  .  .  .  In  eo  iibi  erant  loco 
mori  non  poterant,  licet  fierent  seniores.  Rogato  itaque  super  his  S. 
Guingaleo,  transierunt  in  alium  locum  ad  ortum  solis.  .  .  .  Extunc  vero 
inceperunt  assumi  a  Domino  e  senioribus  patres,  qui  primi  erant." — 
GUEDESTAN,  Vita  S.  Winevaloci,  ap.  BOLLAND.,  t.  i.  Martii,  pp.  259,  260. 
It  is  supposed  that  Guennole  had  been  educated  by  St.  Patrick,  the 
apostle  of  Ireland,  and  that  the  rule  followed  at  Landevenec  was  that 
of  St.  Columba,  or  Colomb-Kill,  of  whom  there  shall  be  further  mention. 
The  Benedictine  rule  was  only  introduced  there  under  Louis  le  Debon- 
naire. 

^  This  is  so  much  the  less  to  be  regretted,  as  the  subject  has  been  nobly 
treated  by  M.  de  la  Borderie,  in  his  Biscours  sur  les  Saints  de  Bretagne,  at 
the  Congress  of  Lorient,  October  2,  1848.  He  has  collected  there  the  best 
part  of  the  varied  and  instructive  details  interspersed  through  the  lives  of 
the  saints  published  in  the  Acta  SS.  by  Mabillon  and  by  the  Bollandists. 
The  verdict  of  the  latter  upon  all  the  Breton  legends  ought  not,  however, 
to  be  omitted:  "Ad  stuporem  magis  quam  ad  imitationem  collecta." — 
Tom.  vi.  Junii,  p.  572. 


154  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

that  the  principal  communities  formed  by  these  monastic 
missionaries  were  soon  transformed  into  bishoprics.  Such, 
especially,  was  Dol,  destined  to  become  the  ecclesiastical 
metropolis  of  Armorica,  and  founded  by  Samson,  perhaps 
the  most  illustrious  among  the  numerous  apostles  of  the 
British  emigration.  Samson  of  Dol,  and  his  six  suffragans, 
all  monks,  missionaries,  and  bishops  like  himself — namely, 
Paul  of  Leon,  Tugdual  of  Treguier,  Corentin  of  Qnimper, 
Paterne  of  Vannes,  Brieuc  and  Malo,  of  the  two  dioceses 
which  have  taken  and  retained  their  names — have  been 
sometimes  called  the  Seven  Saints  of  Brittany.  An  anec- 
dote, told  of  the  Bishop  Paterne,  may  be  quoted  as  a  curious 
example  of  the  subordination  of  the  suffragans  to  their 
metropolitan  :  Having  received  at  Vannes  the  letter  of  St. 
Samson,  convoking  a  provincial  synod,  "  as  he  was  taking 
off  his  boots,  having  still  a  boot  upon  one  foot,  he  read  it  on 
the  moment,  and,  incontinently  getting  to  horse,  followed 
the  messengers,  and  presented  himself  at  the  synod  with 
one  boot!"^  Paterne,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  the  only 
one  of  these  saints  who  was  not  of  insular  British  race,  as 
Vannes  was  the  only  diocese  among  the  seven  which  did  not 
owe  its  origin  to  a  monastery  of  British  emigrants.^ 

Although  Armorica,  thus  converted  and  repeopled  by 
British  emigrants,  had  never  been  entirely  conquered  by 
the  Pranks,  and  was  governed  by  the  native  and  indepen- 
dent Counts  of  Vannes,  Cornouaille  Leon,  and  Treguier,  it 
recognised  in  some  degree  the  supremacy  of  Childebert, 
whose  share  of  the  territories  of  Clovis  extended  farthest  to 
the  west. 

This  incomplete  and  ephemeral  supremacy  of  the  Frank 
kings,^  which  was  afterwards  re-established  with  difficulty 

'  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  248. 

^  Nantes  and  Rennes  were  of  Gallo-Roman  origin,  and  dependencies  of 
the  metropolis  of  Tours. 

^  ' '  Francorum  quidem  regibus  cietera  subditi,  at  semper  vacui  tribute," 
says  Procopius  in  the  passage  quoted  above  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  sea- 
shore. 


THE    FIRST   MEROVINGIANS  155 

bj  Dagobert  and  Louis  the  Debonnaire,  seems  to  have  been 
specially  recognised  and  appealed  to  by  the  British  mission- 
aries. Tugdual,  abbot  and  founder  of  Treguier,  was  raised 
to  the  episcopate  only  with  the  consent  of  Childebert,  in 
whose  court  he  was  at  the  time  of  his  election.  The  same 
was  the  case  in  respect  to  Paul  Aurelian,  first  bishop  of 
Leon,  and  recognised  as  such  by  Childebert,  upon  the  ex- 
press request  of  the  count  of  the  province.^  Finally,  the 
metropolitan  Samson,  being  still  only  abbot  of  Dol,  had  to 
interfere  in  his  own  person  with  Childebert  to  obtain  the 
deliverance  of  one  of  the  native  princes,  who  had  been 
robbed  of  his  inheritance  and  imprisoned  by  a  tyrannical 
lieutenant  of  the  Frank  king.^  Childebert,  in  spite  of  the 
violent  resistance  of  the  queen,  whose  antrustion  this  officer 
was,  granted  the  prayer  of  the  British  missionary,  and  over- 
whelmed him  with  gifts  and  honours.  He  had  even,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  placed  in  perpetuity,  under  the  sway  of  the 
monastery  of  Dol,  various  of  the  Channel  islands,  among 
others  that  of  Jersey,  then  deserted,  and  which  has  since, 
thanks  to  monastic  culture,  become  a  marvel  of  fertility  and 
agricultural  wealth,  with  a  population  six  times  more  dense 
than  that  of  France. 

By  one  of  these  contrasts  so  frequent  in  the  history  of 
the  Merovingians,  the  Queen  Ultrogoth,  whom  the  legend 
of  St.  Samson  represents  as  furious  against  the  monastic 
missionary,  is  extolled  by  others  as  the  faithful  coadjutrice 
of  the  monks.^     She  is  always  associated  by  the  gratitude 

1  BOLLAND.,  t.  ii.  Mart.,  p.  119.  "The  holy  abbot  Armel,  one  of  the 
apostles  of  Lower  Brittany,  lived  for  seven  years  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Childebert." — Propr.  Venetense,  ap.  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  523. 

^  "Dicunt  ei  injustum  super  eos,  ac  violentum,  externumque  judicem 
venisse." — Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  167.  It  is  this  officer  who  is  called  in 
the  legends  of  S.  Samson,  S.  Juval,  S.  Leonor,  S.  Tugdual,  and  S.  Herve, 
Conomor  or  ^on-mor— that  is  to  say,  the  Great  Chief.  He  governed  Dom- 
nonia,  which  comprised  almost  all  Armorica,  and  was  taken  into  the  pri- 
vate service  of  Queen  Ultrogoth,  or,  as  the  Franks  say,  into  her  trust.  Com- 
pare DoM  LOBINEAU,  Saints de Bretagne,  pp.  59,  91,  94,  105,  III,  ed.  of  1725. 

3  "  Adjutrix  fidelis  monachorum." — Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  v.  c.  43. 


156  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

of  monks  and  believers  with  the  memory  of  her  husband, 
for  having  joined  with  him  in  founding,  at  the  gates  of 
Paris,  the  great  monastery,  afterwards  so  celebrated  under 
the  name  of  St.  Germain-des-Pr^s.  This  church,  which 
appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  finest  monuments  of  the 
Merovingian  age,  the  organs  and  painted  glass  of  which,  two 
beautiful  creations  of  Catholic  art,^  were  even  then  admired, 
had  first  been  built  by  Childebert  in  honour  of  the  martyr 
St.  Vincent,  whose  tunic  he  had  carried  off  from  the  Arian 
Visigoths  at  the  time  of  his  victorious  invasion  of  Spain. 
He  bestowed  it  upon  the  monks  with  the  consent  of  the 
Bishop  of  Paris,  Germain,  himself  a  monk,  and  formerly 
abbot  of  St.  Symphorian  of  Autun. 

"  One  day,"  says  the  Breton  legend,  "  the  abbot  of  Dol 
and  the  Bishop  of  Paris  talked  together  about  their  monas- 
teries. ...  St.  Samson  said  that  his  monks  were  such  good 
managers,  and  so  careful  of  their  beehives,  that  besides  the 
honey,  of  which  they  had  an  abundant  supply,  they  had 
more  wax  than  they  could  use  in  the  church  during  the 
whole  year ;  but  that  the  country  not  being  fit  for  the 
growth  of  vines,  they  had  a  great  dearth  of  wine.  And 
we,  on  the  contrary,  said  St.  Germain,  have  vineyards  in 
abundance,  and  a  much  greater  quantity  of  wine  than  is 
wanted  for  the  supply  of  the  monastery ;  but  we  are 
obliged  to  buy  wax  for  the  church.  If  it  pleases  you, 
we  will  give  you  every  year  the  tenth  part  of  our  wine,  and 
you  shall  furnish  us  with  wax  to  light  our  church.  Samson 
accepted  the  offer,  and  the  two  monasteries  mutually  accom- 
modated each  other  during  the  life  of  the  saints."^ 

The  Parisian  abbey  afterwards  received  the  name  of  St. 
Germain,  who  continued  always  a  monk  in  the  exercise  of 
his   episcopal   charge,^  and  who  himself  exempted  the  new 

1  Venantius  Fortunatus,  Carmina,  ii.  10  and  11. 

2  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  422. 

^  "Adeptus  gradum  curae  pastoralis,  de  reliquo  monachus  persistebat." 
— Albert  le  Grand,  Vit.  S.  Germani,  c.  12. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  157 

monastery  from  episcopal  jurisdiction.  As  long  as  he  lived 
he  exercised  the  most  salutary  influence  over  the  Merovin- 
gian kings.  He  consequently  became  one  of  the  most 
popular  saints  that  the  monastic  order  has  given  to  the 
Church  ;  and  the  Parisians  long  narrated,  among  other  tales 
of  his  inexhaustible  charity,  how,  "  esteeming  the  voice  of 
the  poor  more  than  the  gift  of  the  king,"  he  had  sold,^  in 
order  to  buy  back  a  slave,  the  costly  horse  which  the  king 
had  given  him,  charging  him  to  keep  it  for  himself. 

Childebert  died  in  his  arms,  and  was  buried  in  the  church 
of  the  monastery  which  he  had  endowed  so  richly,  with  the 
consent  of  all  the  Frankish  and  Neustrian  chiefs."  At  his 
death  his  brother  Clotaire  became  the  sole  king  of  the 
Frank  monarchy.  He  too,  despite  his  too  certain  ferocity, 
had  known  and  loved  the  monks :  he  also  desired  to  be 
buried  in  the  church  of  the  monastery  which  he  had 
founded  in  his  capital  of  Soissons  under  the  name  of  St. 
Medard,  which  was  that  of  a  great  bishop  (the  son  of  a 
Frank  and  a  Koman  woman)  whose  virtues  he  had  admired, 
and  whose  words  he  had  sometimes  listened  to.  He  testi- 
fied his  faith  and  his  too  just  errors,  when  dying,  in  these 
words,  which  Gregory  of  Tours  has  preserved  to  us  :  "  What 
must  be  the  power  of  that  King  of  heaven,  who  makes  the 
most  powerful  kings  of  the  earth  die  thus  as  He  pleases  ?  "  ^ 

The  great  figure  of  St.  Gregory  of  Tours  overshadows  all 
the  second  generation  of  the  descendants  of  Clovis  and  those 
bloody  struggles  between  the  sons  of  Clotaire,  of  which  he 
has  left  an  undying  picture  in  his  famous  narrative,  restored 

^  Chroniques  de  St.  Deny  a,  liv.  iii.  c.  5.     Compare  Venant.  Fort.,  c.  22. 

2  "  Cum  consensu  et  voluntate  Francorum  et  Neustrasiorum."  The 
authenticity  of  this  famous  charter,  so  often  disputed,  has  been  maintained 
by  Mabillon.  The  dedication  took  place  on  the  same  day  as  the  death  of 
the  king,  December  23,  558.  This  date  is  confirmed  by  M.  Guerard  in  his 
admirable  edition  of  the  Polyptique  d'Irminon,  t.  i.  p.  907-913.  The  iirst 
abbot  was  Droctoveus,  whom  Germain  brought  from  his  ancient  monastery 
of  St.  Symphorian,  at  Autun. 

^  Hist.  Ecci.  Franc,  iii.  21. 


158  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

and  sometimes  altered  by  the  pen  of  the  greatest  historian 
of  our  day.-"^  Some  have  looked  on  him  as  a  monk,^  and  we 
would  fain  feel  ourselves  entitled  to  claim  his  pure  glory  for 
the  monastic  order ;  what  is  certain  is,  that  he  was  by  far 
the  most  honest  and  illustrious  person  of  the  times  which  he 
has  described.  Saddened  and  sometimes  deeply  discouraged 
by  those  horrors  of  which  he  was  the  witness  and  annalist, 
his  soul  was  always  superior  to  his  fortune,  and  even  to  his 
talents.  Without  losing  sight  of  that  profound  respect  for 
the  sovereign  power  with  which  the  traditions  of  his  family 
and  his  Roman  predilections  inspired  him,  he  never  hesi- 
tated to  make  a  stand  when  it  was  necessary  against  the 
grandsons  of  Clovis,  and  especially  against  Chilperic,  whom 
he  called  the  Herod  and  Nero  of  his  age  ;  an  atrocious  and 
ridiculous  tyrant,  who  dreamt,  among  all  his  crimes,  of 
increasing  the  number  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  of 
reducing  that  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity. 

Gregory  laboured  with  all  his  might,  not  for  monarchical 
unity,  which  no  one  dreamt  of  in  these  days,  but  for  the 
union  of  the  Merovingian  race  as  the  sole  means  of  consoli- 
dating and  justifying  the  sway  of  the  Franks  in  Gaul.  The 
liistory  of  France  has  inspired  few  finer  pages  than  this 
preamble  to  his  fifth  book,  in  which,  addressing  himself  to 
all  those  princes  unbridled  alike  in  ferocity  and  profligacy, 
he  exclaims : — 

"  I  am  weary  of  narrating  all  the  changes  of  these  civil 
wars,  which  waste  the  kingdom  and  nation  of  the  Franks. 
.  .  .  What  are  you  doing,  0  kings  ?  What  would  you  ? 
What  seek  you  ?  What  is  wanting  to  you  ?  You  inhabit 
delightful  houses,  your  cellars  overflow  with  wine,  corn,  and 
oil,  and  your  cofiers  with  gold  and  silver.  One  thing  alone 
you  lack,  the  grace  of  God,  because  you  will  not  have  peace. 
Why  will  you  always  take  or  covet  the  goods  of  others  ? 

^  Recits  Merovingiens,  by  M.  Augustin  Thierry,  who  has,  however,  ren- 
dered full  homage  to  the  talent  and  character  of  his  model. 
2  "Hand  constat,"  says  Mabillon,  Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  viii.  c.  62. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  I  59 

...  If  civil  war  is  sweet  to  thee,  0  king !  give  thyself 
to  that  which  the  Apostle  has  revealed  to  us  in  the  heart  of 
man,  to  the  war  of  the  Spirit  against  the  flesh  ;  overcome 
thy  vices  by  thy  virtues  :  and  then,  enfranchised,  thou  shalt 
freely  serve  Christ,  who  is  thy  chief,  after  having  been  the 
bond-slave  of  evil."  ^ 

Amid  the  lifelike  and  varied  narratives  of  the  father  of 
our  history,  it  would  be  easy  to  glean  facts  which  belong  to 
our  subject,  and  to  show,  among  the  grandsons  of  Clovis, 
some  who,  like  Gontran  of  Burgundy  ^  and  Sigebert  of 
Austrasia,  were  the  friends  of  the  monks  and  founders  of 
new  monasteries ;  and  some  who,  like  Chilperic  and  his  son 
during  their  incursions  south  of  the  Loire,  abandoned  the 
monastic  sanctuaries  to  the  flames,  the  monks  to  death  or 
exile,  and  the  nuns  to  the  brutal  insults  of  their  soldiers.^ 
It  will  be  better  worth  our  while  to  suspend  that  arid 
nomenclature,  and  pause  a  moment  upon  the  noble  attitude 

1  "  Si  ite,  o  rex  !  bellum  civile  delectat,  illud  quod  Apostolus  in  hominem 
agi  meminit,  exerce,  ut  spiritus  concupiscat  adversus  carnem  (GaZat.  v.  17),  et 
vitia  virtutibus  cedant ;  et  tu,  liber,  capiti  tuo,  id  est,  Christo,  servias,  qui 
quondam  radici  malorum  servieras  compeditus." — Lib.  v.,  Prologus. 

2  Gontran,  son  of  Clotaire  I.,  King  of  Orleans,  afterwards  of  Burgundy, 
founded,  about  577,  at  the  gate  of  his  new  capital  of  Chalon-sur-Saone,  a 
celebrated  abbey  under  the  patronage  of  St,  Marcel,  at  the  very  place 
where  this  martyr  was  immolated  by  the  Romans,  and  where  he  remained 
for  three  days  alive,  half-buried  in  a  pit,  praying  for  his  executioners, 
and  for  that  land  of  Burgundy  which  he  fertilised  with  his  blood.  In  his 
deed  of  endowment,  Gontran  says — "  I  see  with  grief  that  as  a  punishment 
of  your  sins  the  churches  built  for  the  service  of  God  fall  to  decay  by  the 
excessive  ambition  of  the  princes,  and  the  too  great  neglect  of  the  prelates." 
He  desired  the  new  abbey  to  be  regulated  after  the  model  of  Agaune,  the 
great  monastery  of  the  Burgonde  kingdom,  which  had  preceded  Mero- 
vingian Burgundy,  and  consequently  introduced  there  the  Laus  Perennis. 
He  followed  the  same  course  at  St.  Benigne,  a  monastery  erected  at  Dijon 
over  the  tomb  of  another  apostle  and  martyr  of  Burgundy.  Gontran 
caused  himself  to  be  interred  in  the  monastery  which  he  had  founded,  as 
his  father  Clotaire  had  been  at  St.  Medard,  and  his  uncle  Childebert  at  St. 
Germain-des-Pres.  St.  Marcel,  converted  into  a  priory  of  the  order  of 
Gluny  in  1060,  has  since  been  celebrated  as  the  scene  of  the  retreat  and 
death  of  Abelard. 

3  Gebg.  Turon.,  iv.  48. 


l6o  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

of  a  Gallo-Roman  monk,^  whom  Gregory  knew  well,  whose 
history  he  has  related  to  us,  and  in  whom  monastic  life 
seems  to  have  developed  a  lively  and  tender  solicitude  for 
the  misery  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

Aredius,  born  at  Limoges  of  an  exalted  family,  had  been 
recommended  or  given  as  a  hostage,  in  his  childhood,  to  the 
Frank  king  Theodebert,  the  same  whom  we  have  seen 
giving  so  cordial  a  welcome  to  the  sons  of  St.  Benedict  at 
Glanfeuil.  Aredius  soon  brought  himself  into  so  much 
favour  with  this  prince  that  he  became  his  secretary,  or,  as 
it  was  already  called,  his  chancellor.^  This  was  an  ofiSce 
which  then  began  to  acquire  great  importance,  and  the 
holders  of  which  repeatedly  entered  the  ranks  of  the  mon- 
astic order.  That  monk,  called  Nizier,  who  had  become 
Bishop  of  Treves,  and  whose  courage  and  humanity  we  have 
already  recorded,  imagined  that  he  saw  the  stamp  of  celestial 
grace  in  the  face  of  the  young  courtier  whom  he  met  in  the 
palace.  He  led  him  to  his  cell,  where  he  spoke  to  him  of 
God,  and,  in  bringing  him  to  a  knowledge  of  religious  truth, 
inspired  him  with  an  inclination  for  cloister  life.  A  dove 
which,  during  these  confidential  interviews,  came  incessantly 
to  the  young  and   gentle  Aredius  to  perch  on  his  head  or 

^  Hist.  Eccl.  Francor.,  lib.  x.  c.  29.  Two  other  Lives  of  St.  Aredius  also 
exist  (ap.  Bolland.,  t.  vi.  August.,  p.  175).  The  first  and  shortest,  Vita 
Prima,  is  by  an  anonymous  contemporary.  The  second.  Vita  Prolixior,  is 
attributed  by  Mabillon,  who  has  published  it  in  his  Analecta  (p.  198),  to 
Gregory  of  Tours  himself  ;  but  Ruinart  (Opera  Greg.  Tur.,  p.  1285)  and  the 
BoUandists  have  shown  that  this  was  incorrect.  However,  Gregory  speaks 
of  him  in  several  other  parts  of  his  works.  (Hist.  Franc,  lib.  viii.  c.  15 
and  27.  De  Mirac.  S.  Juliani,  c.  40.  De  Virtut.  S.  Martini,  ii.  39.  De  Gloria 
Confess.,  c.  9.) 

2  "Parentela  nobli  generatus.  .  .  .  Nobilissima  videlicet  origine.  .  .  . 
Valde  ingenuus.  .  .  .  Theodeberto  regi  traditus,  aulicis  palatinis  adjungi- 
tur.  .  .  .  Ut  cancellarius  prior  ante  conspectum  regis  adsisteret.  .  .  . 
Cancellarii  sortitus  officium."—  Ubi  supra.  Le  Huerou,  founding  upon  some 
document  whose  origin  he  does  not  state  (Sanctus  Aridius,  Lemovicensis 
abbas,  apud  Theodebertum  cancellarius,  quce  prior  erat  militia  palatina), 
says  that  this  charge  was  the  most  eminent  post  in  the  Court  of  the 
Merovingians. — Inntit.  Merov.,  i.  383. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  l6l 

shoulder,  still  further  convinced  the  prelate  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  to  inspire  his  pupil.^  He  permitted  him,  how- 
ever, to  return  to  his  own  country,  to  his  mother  Pelagia, 
who  had  no  children  but  himself.  But  when  he  returned 
to  his  native  Limousin,  Aredius  took  no  thought  of  his 
fields  or  his  vineyards,  which  he  gave  up  to  his  mother, 
charging  her  to  provide  for  the  subsistence  of  the  little 
community  which  he  formed  on  one  of  his  estates,  filling 
up  its  numbers  principally  from  the  people  of  his  house,^  and 
which  became  the  origin  of  a  town,  named  after  him  St. 
Yrieix.^ 

He  had  first  intended  to  seclude  himself  in  a  cavern,  but, 
at  the  prayer  of  his  mother,  he  transferred  his  monastery  to 
a  more  agreeable  site.  He  divided  his  time  between  agri- 
cultural labour  and  study  ;  he  specially  transcribed  with  his 
own  hand  copies  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  liturgical  books, 
which  he  took  pleasure  in  distributing  among  the  churches 
of  the  neighbouring  dioceses.  The  poor  and  the  sick 
crowded  to  him  like  bees  to  the  hive.*  He  helped  the  one 
and  cured  the  other.  He  went  to  Tours  every  year  out  of 
his  cloister  to  celebrate  the  feast  of  St.  Martin,  and,  with 
many  prayers,  to  kiss  the  tomb  of  the  great  bishop  ;  then 
crossing  the  Loire,  went  to  Marmoutier,  to  rebaptize  him- 
self in  the  monastic  spirit,  by  visiting  all  the  spots  where 

^  "Nescio  quid  in  vultu  ejus  cernens  divinum.  .  .  .  Cum  ingressi  in 

cellulam  de  iis  quae  ad   Deum  pertinent  confabularentur  .  .  ." Geeg. 

TuR.,  loc.  cit. 

^  "  Sive  exercitium  agrorum,  sive  cultus  vinearum  ...  Ex  familia  pro- 
pria tonsuratos  instruit  monachos." — Ihid.  In  his  History,  Gregory  says 
that  he  followed  the  rules  of  Cassianus,  St.  Basil,  and  other  abbots,  qui 
monasterialem  vitam  instituerunt.  He  makes  no  special  mention  of  St. 
Benedict ;  but  in  the  Vita  prolixior,  written  by  an  eye-witness  of  the 
miracles  which  were  performed  on  the  tomb  of  Aredius  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  everything  bears  the  stamp  of  the  Benedictine  rule.  Com- 
pare BOLLAND.,  loc.  cit. 

^  Now  a  district  county-town  in  the  Haute-Vienne. 

■1  "In  villis  amoenis.  .      .  Incumbens  lectioni  .  .  .  laborans  per  agros, 
alimoniam  corpori  quaerebat.  .  .  .  Codices  sacros.  .  .  .  Multitude  pauperum 
velut  apes  ad  alvearium  confluebant  ad  eum." —  Vita  prolixior,  p.  200. 
VOL.  II.  L 


1 62  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

Martin  had  knelt  in  prayer,  or  which  he  had  sanctified  by 
song ;  he  carried  back  with  him,  as  a  medicine  for  his  sick, 
the  water  of  the  well  which  Martin  had  opened  by  his  own 
labour.  There  he  met  the  bighop  Gregory,  whose  intimate 
friend  he  became,  and  who  has  preserved  to  us  all  these 
details.-^ 

He  continued  in  the  meantime  to  keep  up  his  intercourse 
with  the  Merovingian  princes,  and  by  this  means  interfered 
on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  population.  More  than  once, 
when  the  tributes  and  villain-tax  were  applied  with  too 
much  severity  to  the  cities  of  the  Gauls,  according  to  lists 
which  the  kings  had  made  out,  he  hastened  to  ask  a  dimi- 
nution of  that  intolerable  burden.  One  day  when,  going 
through  Paris,  he  had  travelled  secretly  and  in  haste  as  far 
as  Braine,  where  King  Chilperic  then  was,  the  latter,  who 
was  sick  of  a  fever,  when  informed  of  his  arrival,  imme- 
diately ordered  him  to  be  brought,  in  hope  to  obtain  a  cure 
by  the  prayers  of  the  servant  of  God.  But  Aredius,  while 
feeling  his  pulse,  could  speak  of  nothing  but  the  object  of 
his  journey.  The  king,  touched  or  terrified  by  his  remon- 
strances, delivered  up  to  him  the  lists  of  the  contributions 
which  weighed  so  cruelly  upon  the  poor  people.  Then  the 
abbot  lighted  a  great  fire  and  burned  the  fatal  registers 
with  his  own  hands,  in  the  presence  of  a  numerous  crowd. 
He  had  before  announced  that  the  king  would  be  healed, 
but  that  his  sons  should  die  in  his  stead,  which  happened 
as  he  said.^ 

^  "  Beatum  sepulcrum  orando  deosculans.  .  .  .  Anno  transito  .  ,  .  cuncta 
circuit,  cuncta  peragrat.  .  .  ." — De  Mar.  S.  Mart.,  ii.  39.     Compare  iii.  24. 

2  "Acciditut  populis  tributa  vel  census  a  regibus  fuissent  descripta  : 
quae  conditio  universis  urbibus  per  Gallias  constitutis  summopere  est 
adhibita.  Pro  hac  se  vir  reverentissimus  pietate  motus  ad  regis  prsesen- 
tiam  properavit,  ut  suggestionem  daret  pro  civibus,  qui  gravi  censu  pub- 
lico fuerant  edicto  adscripti.  .  .  .  Alio  quoque  tempore,  pro  hujuscemodi 
conditione  properavit  itinera.  .  .  .  Ccepit  cum  manibus  suis  palpare.  .  .  . 
Libros  ipsos,  quibus  inscriptus  pro  grayi  censu  populus  regni  ejus  tene- 
batur  afflictus.  .  .  .  Jussit  prunas  parari.  .  .  .  Apprehensos  manibus 
ipsis  libros,  multis  etiam  circumstantibus,  incendio  concremavit."—  Vita 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 63 

On  another  occasion,  having  heard  that  there  were 
several  persons  condemned  to  death  at  Limoges,  he  went 
from  his  monastery  to  the  town,  to  consult  upon  the  means 
of  saving  them.  Here  popular  tradition  is  carried  away  by  ' 
the  memory  of  that  compassion  for  all  kinds  of  misfortunes 
with  which  the  heart  of  the  holy  abbot  overflowed.  It 
records,  that  as  soon  as  he  approached  the  prison,  the  doors 
turned  on  their  hinges  of  themselves,  and  all  the  locks  were 
broken,  as  well  as  the  chains  of  the  captives,  who  were  thus 
enabled  to  escape,  and  seek  an  inviolable  asylum  at  the 
tomb  of  St.  Martial,  the  first  apostle  of  Limousin.^ 

A  still  more  authentic  memorial  of  his  solicitude  for  his 
inferiors  remains  to  us  in  his  will,  written  twenty  years 
before  his  death,  and  confirmed  on  the  eve  of  that  day 
when,  full  of  years  and  labours.^  he  appeared  before  God. 
By  this  document  he  places  his  monastery  and  monks,  his 
villa  of  Excideuil  with  all  the  serfs  or  mancipia  who  cul- 
tivated his  vineyards,  and  whose  names  and  families  he 
enumerates  carefully,  under  the  protection  of  the  church  of 
St.  Martin  of  Tours,  which  was  then  the  most  venerated 
sanctuary  in   Gaul.      He  stipulates    expressly  that    certain 

prolixior,  p.  203.  The  Bollandists  (p.  190)  and  Ruinart  think  that  this  king, 
who  is  not  named  in  the  contemporary  narrative,  was  Chilperic  I.,  king  of 
Neustria,  and  son  of  Clotaire  ;  but  it  is  singular  that  Gregory  of  Tours,  who 
knew  Aredius  so  well,  has  not  named  him  in  relating  how  Fredegond  and 
Chilperic  decided  on  burning  the  taxing  lists  after  the  death  of  their  three 
sons. — Hist.  Franc,  lib.  i.  c.  35. 

^  "Confestim  .  .  .  velut  magno  ferientis  impulsu  confractae  serae,  dis- 
sipati  cardines  ostia  carceris  patefacta,  et  omnia  vincula  compeditorum 
resoluta  sunt."— Fite  prolixior,  p.  201.  Gregory  of  Tours  relates  another 
incident  which  shows  to  what  an  extent  the  monks  were  then  regarded  as 
the  natural  and  powerful  protectors  of  the  condemned.  A  criminal  was 
condemned  to  death  ;  when  he  had  been  hung,  the  rope  broke,  and  he 
fell  to  the  ground  without  being  hurt.  They  hung  him  anew.  On  this 
news,  the  abbot  of  the  nearest  monastery  ran  to  the  count,  or  judge  of 
the  district,  to  intercede  for  him  ;  and  after  having  obtained  the  life  of 
the  culprit,  he  brought  him  to  the  monastery  penitent  and  saved. — De 
Mirac.  S.  Martini,  iii.  53. 

-  "  Post  labores  innumeros  viriliter  ac  f ortiter  toleratos." —  Vita  prima, 
No.  13. 


1 64  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

female  vassals,  whom  he  names,  should  pay  only  a  triens 
each,  yearly,  to  the  monks  of  his  monastery.  Finally,  he 
mentions,  name  by  name,  fifty  men  and  women,  among 
whom  was  a  certain  Lucy,  whom  he  had  ransomed  from 
captivity ;  he  intrusted  their  freedom  to  the  guardianship 
of  St.  Martin.  "  These  are,"  he  says,  "  my  freed  men  and 
women,  some  of  whom  have  been  confided  to  me  by  my 
father  of  blessed  memory,  and  the  others  I  have  myself 
enfranchised  for  the  good  of  my  brother's  soul ;  I  give  them 
to  thy  charge,  my  lord  St.  Martin.  And  if  any  man 
assumes  to  exact  from  them  what  they  do  not  owe,  or  to 
disturb  and  oppress  them  for  any  reason  whatever,  it  shall 
be  thy  part,  St.  Martin,  to  defend  them."  ^ 

During  the  last  sufferings  of  this  benefactor  of  the  un- 
fortunate and  the  slaves,  a  poor  sick  woman,  one  possessed 
with  a  devil,  whom  the  holy  abbot  had  not  been  able  to  heal, 
escaped  from  the  prison  where  she  had  been  confined,  and 
ran  to  the  monastery,  crying — "  Come,  friends  and  neigh- 
bours, make  haste  ;  come,  let  us  hasten  to  meet  the  martyrs 
and  confessors  who  are  coming  to  celebrate  the  obsequies  of 
our  holy  abbot.  Behold  Julian  approaching  from  Brives, 
Martin  from  Tours,  Martial  from  our  city  of  Limoges, 
Saturnin  from  Toulouse,  Denis  from  Paris,  and  many  others 
who  are  in  heaven,  and  to  whom  you  appeal  as  martyrs 
and    confessors   of  God."      Aredius    some  time  before  had 


1  "  Volumus  ut  .  .  .  sub  defensione  tua,  sancte  domine  Martine,  con- 
sistant  .  .  .  cum  Lucia  quam  redemimus  captivam.  .  .  .  Ita  liberos  et 
liberas  nostras,  quos  nobis  bonae  memorise  genitor  noster  Jocundus  per 
testamentum  suum  commendavit,  similiter  et  illos  quos  pro  remedio 
animse  bonse  memoriaj  fratris  nostri  Eustadii  liberos  fecimus  tibi,  sancte 
Martine,  defensando  commendamus.  Et  si  quis  eis  amplius  prseter  hoc 
quod  eis  injunctum  et  in  quolibet  inquietare  aut  dominare  voluerit,  tu, 
sancte  Martine,  defendas." — Mabillon,  Analecta,  p.  209.  The  authenticity 
of  this  testament,  mentioned  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  published  and  an- 
notated as  authentic  by  Mabillon  and  Ruinart,  has  been  disputed  by  Le 
Cointe.  The  BoUandists  discuss  without  deciding  this  question.  It  is 
very  long,  and  contains  a  multitude  of  arrangements  which  make  it  one 
of  the  most  curious  documents  of  the  period. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  165 

predicted  his  own  death  to  his  friend  Gregory  of  Tours,  and 
taken  leave  of  him  while  kissing  the  tomb  of  St.  Martin 
for  the  last  time  ;  he  died  above  eighty  years  old  ;  and  the 
poor  possessed  woman  was  cured  by  his  intercession. 

That  faith  which  opened  heaven  to  the  eyes  of  that  poor 
woman,  and  showed  her  the  apostles  whose  martyrdom  had 
worked  the  first  conversion  of  Gaul,  standing  closer  in  their 
ranks  to  admit  the  new  confessors  produced  by  the  monastic 
order, — that  ardent  and  tender  faith  naturally  inspired  the 
hearts  of  the  Christian  women  of  Gaul,  and  rendered  the 
cloisters  from  which  issued  so  many  alms,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  many  examples  of  virtue,  more  and  more  dear  to 
them.  Those  who  did  not  adopt  religious  life  in  their  own 
person  had  brothers  or  sisters  in  it,  or,  dearer  still,  sons  and 
daughters  ;  and  maternal  love  thus  redoubled  their  attach- 
ment to  an  institution  in  which  all  the  blessings  and  duties 
of  Christianity  were  to  them  embodied.  The  same  Gregory 
of  Tours  whose  invaluable  narrative  enlightens  us  in  the 
history,  not  of  the  early  times  of  our  country  alone,  but 
also  of  the  human  heart,  relates  a  touching  incident  in  con- 
nection with  the  famous  abbey  of  Agaune  (which  we  have 
already  mentioned  ^),  which  was  built  in  honour  of  St. 
Maurice  and  the  martyrs  of  the  Theban  legion,  on  a  site 
near  the  outlet  of  the  Rhone  into  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  and 
became  the  monastic  metropolis  of  the  kingdom  of  Burgundy. 
A  mother  had  taken  her  only  son  to  this  monastery,  where 
he  became  a  monk,  especially  instructed  and  skilful  in 
chanting  the  liturgical  service ;  he  fell  sick  and  died ;  his 
mother,  in  despair,  came  to  bury  him,  and  returned  every 

^  "  Dixit  nobis  se  baud  longEevo  tempore  adhuc  in  hoc  mundo  retineri. 
.  .  .  Vale  dicens  .  .  .  gratias  agens  quod  priusquam  obiret,  sepulcrum  B, 
antistitis  osculari  promeruisset.  .  .  .  Currite,  cives,  exsilite,  populi ;  exite 
obviam.  .  .  .  Ecce  adest  Julianus,  .  .  .  Martialis  ab  urbe  propria,  .  .  . 
Dionysius  ab  urbe  Parisiaca,  .  .  .  quos  vos  ut  confessores  at  Dei  martyres 
adoratis." — Gkeg.  Tub.,  x.  29. 

2  See  vol.  i.  p.  370,  and  vol,  il  p.  127,  on  the  occasion  of  the  journey  of 
St.  Maur. 


1 66  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

day  to  weep  and  lament  over  his  tomb.  One  night  she 
saw  St.  Maurice  in  a  dream  attempting  to  console  her,  but 
answered  him,  "  No,  no ;  as  long  as  I  live  I  shall  always 
weep  my  son,  my  sole  child."  "  But,"  answered  the  saint, 
"  he  must  not  be  wept  for  as  if  he  were  dead  :  he  is  with 
us,  he  rejoices  in  eternal  life,  and  to-morrow  at  matins,  in 
the  monastery,  thou  shalt  hear  his  voice  among  the  choir  of 
the  monks  ;  and  not  to-morrow  only,  but  every  day  as  long 
as  thou  livest."  The  mother  immediately  rose  and  waited 
with  impatience  the  first  sound  of  the  bell  for  matins,  to 
hasten  to  the  church  of  the  monks.  The  precentor  having 
intoned  the  response,  when  the  monks  in  full  choir  took  up 
the  anthem,  the  mother  immediately  recognised  the  voice  of 
her  dear  child.  She  gave  thanks  to  God  ;  and  every  day 
for  the  rest  of  her  life,  thus  deluding  her  grief  and  maternal 
tenderness,  the  moment  she  approached  the  choir,  she  heard 
the  voice  of  her  well-beloved  son  mingle  in  the  sweet  and 
holy  harmony  of  the  liturgical  chant.^  And  to  us  too  it 
seems  to  echo  across  the  ages,  that  voice  of  the  child,  vocem 
infantuli,  the  purest,  the  dearest,  the  most  heaven-like 
melody  that  the  human  ear  can  receive. 

The  Armorican  legend  also  stirs  that  same  chord  of  mater- 
nal love.  It  tells  us  how  the  mother  of  the  Christian  bard, 
the  blind  Herve,  having  consented  to  place  him  for  seven 
years  apart  from  her  in  a  cloister,  where  he  was  taught  to 
excel  in  song,  went  to  see  him,  and  said,  as  she  was  approach- 

^  "  Cucarrit  mater  orbata  ad  obsequium  funeris  plangens  .  .  .  per  dies 
singulos  veniebat,  et  super  sepulcrum  nati  sui  .  ,  .  ejulabat  .  .  .  '  Dum 
advixero,  semper  deflebo  unicum  meum,  nee  unquam  migrabor  a  lacrymis, 
donee  oculos  corporis  hujus  .  .  .  mors  concludat. — Scias  eum  nobiscum 
habitare  et  sedentem  vitae  perennis  consortio  nostro  perfrui.  .  .  .  Surge 
crastina  die  ad  matutinum,  et  audies  vocem  ejus  inter  choros  psallentium 
monachorum.  Surgit  mulier,  longaque  ducit  suspiria,  nee  obdormit  in 
strato  suo,  donee  signum  ad  consurgendum  commoveatur  a  monachis. 
Ubi  cantator  responsorium,  antiphonam,  caterva  suscepit  monacho- 
rum, audit  genitrix,  parvuli  vocem  cognoscit,  et  gratias  agit  Deo.  .  .  . 
Inpletum  est  ut  omnibus  diebus  vitse  suae  vocem  audiret  infantuli  inter 
reliqua  modulamina  vocum."— Geeg.  Tub.,  De  Glor.  Martyrum,  c.  76. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 67 

ing  :  "  I  see  a  procession  of  monks  advancing,  and  I  hear  the 
voice  of  my  son ;  if  there  should  be  a  thousand  singing  to- 
gether, I  could  still  distinguish  the  voice  of  my  Herve.  I 
see  my  son  in  a  grey  habit,  with  a  girdle  of  rope,  God  be 
with  you,  my  son,  the  clerk !  when,  with  the  help  of  God, 
I  get  to  heaven,  you  shall  be  warned  of  it,  you  shall  hear  the 
angels  sing."  The  same  evening,  after  she  had  so  happily  seen 
him,  she  died  ;  and  her  son,  the  precentor  and  monastic  bard, 
heard  the  angels  who  celebrated  her  obsequies  in  heaven.-^ 

The  noble  Aredius,  whose  death  has  carried  us  back  into 
legendary  ground,  did  not  leave  his  cloister  only  to  pray  at 
the  tomb  of  St.  Martin,  or  to  seek  favour  for  an  oppressed 
people  from  the  Merovingian  kings.  He  also  went  every 
year  to  visit  in  a  monastery  of  Poitiers  the  most  illustrious 
nun  of  that  age.  Queen  Radegund. 


IV. — St.  Radegund. 

I  shall  die  in  my  nest. — Job  xxix.  18. 

EUa  giunse  e  levo  ambo  le  palme, 
Ficcando  gli  occhi  verso  I'oriente, 
Come  dicesse  a  Dio  :  d'altro  non  calme. 

Te  lucis  ante  si  divotamente 
Le  usci  de  bocca  e  con  si  dolci  note 
Che  fece  me  a  me  uscir  di  mente. 

E  I'altre  poi  dolcemente  e  divote 
Seguitar  lei  per  tutto  I'inno  intero 
Avendo  gli  occhi  alle  superne  rote. 

— Pure/at.,  c.  viii. 

We  have  now  to  contemplate  at  greater  length  a  sweet 
and  noble  figure  which  appears  before  us  :  it  is  that  of  the 
holy  queen  who  gave  the  first  example,  so  often  followed 
since,  of  a  crowned  head  bowed  under  the  common  discipline 
of  monastic  laws.  Her  holy  but  troubled  life,  as  fit  a  subject 
for  the  poet  as  for  the  historian,  was  contemporary  with  all 
the  crimes  which  soiled  the   annals  of  the   descendants  of 

1  La  ViLLEMAEQUJfi,  Ligende  Celtique,  p.  257. 


1 68  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

Olovis.  It  inaugurates  worthily  that  wonderful  action  of 
monastic  life  upon  the  women  and  queens  of  barbarous 
nations,  which  placed  a  Radegund  and  a  Bathilde  upon  the 
throne  and  the  altar,  in  an  age  which  seemed  to  be  given  up 
as  a  prey  to  the  Fredegunds  and  Brunehaults. 

During  the  expedition  of  the  kings  Thierry  I.  and  Clot- 
aire  I.  beyond  the  Rhine,  and  the  war  of  extermination  which 
they  waged  against  the  Thuringians  in  529,  the  daughter  of 
a  king  of  Thuringia  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors.  Her 
name  was  Radegund  ;  ^  and,  despite  her  extreme  youth,  her 
precocious  beauty  fascinated  the  two  brothers  to  such  a  point 
that  they  had  almost  come  to  blows  to  dispute  the  possession 
of  her.  She  fell  to  Clotaire,  the  most  cruel  and  debauched 
of  all  the  sons  of  Clovis.  The  young  and  royal  captive, 
snatched  from  her  family  by  the  right  of  conquest,  amid  the 
carnage  and  devastation  of  her  country,  was  taken  into  one 
of  the  villas  of  Clotaire,  where  he  gave  her  a  careful,  and  even 
literary,  education,  with  the  intention  of  one  day  making  her 
his  wife.  She  had  a  great  taste  for  study,  but,  above  every- 
thing, for  piety  ;  and,  far  from  aspiring  to  share  the  bed  and 
throne  of  her  ferocious  conqueror,  she  told  her  young  com- 
panions that  she  desired  nothing  so  much  as  martyrdom.^ 

1  We  have  her  life  written  first  by  two  contemporaries — the  poet  Fortu- 
natus,  Bishop  of  Poitiers,  and  Baudonivia,  a  nun  whom  she  had  brought  up  ; 
afterwards  by  Hildebert  of  Mans,  in  the  twelfth  century.  A  curious  work, 
entitled  the  Preuve  Hlstorique  des  Litanies  de  la  Grande  Reyne  de  France 
Saincte  Radegonde,  by  N.  Jean  Filleau,  Doctor  and  Regent  of  the  University, 
Advocate  of  the  King,  &c.  (Poitiers,  1543,  in  folio),  may  also  be  consulted. 
Everybody  has  read  the  passages  referring  to  her  in  M.  Augustin  Thierry's 
Ricits  Merovingiens.  M.  Edouard  de  Fleury,  in  his  Histoire  de  Saintc  Rade- 
gonde (Poitiers,  1843),  and,  above  all,  the  learned  and  lamented  Abbot 
Gorini,  in  his  excellent  work,  entitled  Defense  de  I'Eglise  Catholique  contre 
les  Erreurs  Historiques,  &c.  (Lyon,  1853,  t.  ii.  ch.  15),  have  very  profitably 
refuted  the  numerous  errors  which  detract  from  the  value  of  the  narrative 
of  the  illustrious  blind  historian. 

2  "  Vultu  elegans.  .  .  .  Litteris  erudita.  .  .  .  Frequenter  loquens  cum 
parvulis  .  .  .  martyr  fieri  cupiens." — Act.  SS.  Bolland.,  t.  iii.  Aug.,  pp. 
84, 86.  "Elegantissima,  speciosa  nimis  et  venusta  aspectu." —  Vit.  S.  Juniani, 
c.  s,  ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  Ben.,  t.  i.  p.  293. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 69 

When  she  was  eighteen,  and  knew  that  the  king  was  pre- 
paring everything  for  their  marriage,  she  escaped  by  night  in 
a  boat,  from  the  house,  situated  on  the  Somme,  where  she  had 
been  kept.  But  she  was  soon  retaken,  and  Clotaire  shortly 
afterwards  added  his  prisoner  to  the  number  of  his  queens — 
that  is,  of  the  wives  whom  he  elevated  above  the  rank  of 
concubines/  He  is  known  to  have  had  six  of  this  degree, 
two  of  whom  were  the  widows  of  his  brothers,  and  two  sisters 
whom  he  had  married  at  the  same  time.  As  for  Radegund, 
he  loved  her  passionately,  and  more  than  all  the  others,  at 
least  for  a  time,  even  while  chafing  at  her  coldness,  and  the 
strange  contrast  which  he  did  not  fail  to  perceive  between 
her  and  himself.  "It  is  not  a  queen  that  I  have  here,"  he 
said — "  it  is  a  true  nun."  "  The  young  and  beautiful  captive 
naturally  sought  in  religion  the  only  grace  which  could  con- 
sole her  for  her  marriage,  and  the  only  strength  which  could 
be  respected,  though  scarcely  understood,  by  the  master  to 
whom  she  was  obliged  to  submit.  When  the  king  called  her 
to  sup  with  him,  she  made  him  wait  till  she  had  finished  her 
pious  readings,  which  enraged  Clotaire.  But  the  amorous 
Barbarian  soon  attempted  to  make  amends  by  presents  for 

1  Compare  Act.  SS.  Bolland.,  loc.  cit.,  p.  50.  We  may  be  permitted 
to  refer  to  the  learned  commentary  of  the  Jesuit  hagiographies  for  the 
diflSculties  which  are  raised,  not  only  by  the  polygamy  of  Clotaire,  but 
especially  by  the  question,  how  Radegund  could  have  taken  the  veil  during 
the  lifetime  of  her  husband.  We  must  do  Clotaire  the  justice  to  acknow- 
ledge that,  in  spite  of  his  unbounded  licentiousness,  he  could  respect  vir- 
ginity when  it  appeared  to  him  consecrated  by  religion,  as  is  shown  in  the 
touching  history  of  Consortia,  a  rich  heiress  of  Provence,  whose  immense 
fortune  had  drawn  around  her  a  crowd  of  pretenders,  and  who  went  to  ask 
of  Clotaire  the  favour  of  remaining  in  celibacy  in  her  own  domains,  the 
revenue  of  which  was  devoted  to  the  Church  and  to  the  poor.  She  obtained 
it,  after  having  cured  one  of  the  daughters  of  Clotaire  of  a  mortal  malady. 
Subsequently  this  young  princess  obtained  her  brother  Sigebert's  protec- 
tion for  Consortia,  who  was  again  sought  in  marriage  by  a  Frank  noble, 
that  she  might  keep  the  liberty  which  had  been  promised  to  her  by  Clotaire. 
—Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  235. 

2  "  Quam  tanto  amore  dilexit,  ut  nihil  praster  illam  se  habere  aliquoties 
fateretur." —  Vit.  S.  Juniani,  loc.  cit.  "  Dicebatur  habere  se  magis  frugalem 
monacham  quam  reginam." — Bolland.,  p.  69. 


I70  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

his  angry  words.  During  the  night  she  rose  from  his  side 
to  stretch  herself  upon  haircloth  until  she  was  half  frozen, 
and  could  scarcely  be  restored  to  warmth  by  her  bed.  Her 
days  were  devoted  to  the  study  of  sacred  literature,  to  pro- 
longed interviews  with  the  students  and  bishops  who  came  to 
the  court  of  Soissons,  and,  above  all,  to  almsgiving,  and  the 
management  of  an  hospital  which  she  had  founded  in  that 
estate  of  Athies,  where  she  had  passed  the  first  years  of  her 
captivity,  and  where  she  herself  waited  on  the  sick  women 
with  the  most  devoted  care.'^ 

Everything  in  her  life  reveals  the  absolute  dominion  of  the 
faith  of  Christ  upon  her  soul,  and  her  passionate  desire  to 
serve  that  faith  without  reservation  or  delay.  At  one  time, 
when  her  servants  had  praised  the  new  attraction  added  to 
her  beauty  by  a  sort  of  head-dress,  ornamented  with  jewels, 
which  was  worn  by  Barbarian  queens,  she  hastened  to  lay 
that  diadem  upon  the  altar  of  the  nearest  church.^  And  at 
another,  indignant  to  see  in  her  path  a  pagan  temple,  a 
vestige  of  that  which  she  regarded  as  a  diabolical  superstition, 
she  paused  in  the  midst  of  her  military  retinue  to  order  its 
destruction ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  furious  outcries  and  des- 
perate resistance  of  the  surrounding  population,  composed  of 
Franks  who  were  still  idolaters,  and  defended  the  sanctuary 
of  their  national  worship  with  swords  and  clubs,  she  remained 
on  horseback  in  the  middle  of  her  train  till  the  building  had 
disappeared  in  the  flames.^ 

1  "  Rixas  habebat  a  conjuge,  ita  ut  vicibus  multis  princeps  per  munera 
satisfaceret  quod  per  linguam  peccasset.  .  .  .  Gelu  penetrata  .  .  .  vix 
tepefieri  poterat  vel  foco  vel  lectulo.  .  .  .  Morborum  curabat  putredines, 
virorum  capita  diluens." — Bolland.,  p.  69. 

-  "Quoties  .  .  .  more  vestiebat  de  barbaro,  a  circumstantibus  puellis 
si  laudaretur  pulcherrimum." — Bolland.,  p.  69. 

3  "  Sseculari  pompa  se  comitante.  ,  .  .  Fanum  quod  a  Francis  colebatur 
.  .  .  diabolico  machinamento.  .  .  .  Franci  et  universa  multitude  cum 
gladiis  et  fustibus.  .  .  ,  Regina  .  .  .  equum  quem  sedebat  inantea  non 
movit." — Bolland.,  p.  76.  The  nun  Baudonivia,  in  relating  this  anec- 
dote, says,  "Quod  audivimus  dicimus,  et  quod  vidimus  testamur. "  It  is 
probable  that  before  following  the  queen  into  the  cloister  she  was  a  member 
of  her  lay  household. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  I/I 

Six  years  after  her  marriage,  Clotaire  killed,  without  any 
reason,  a  young  brother  of  Radegund,  the  companion  of  her 
captivity,  whom  she  loved  tenderly.  This  was  the  signal  of 
her  deliverance.  With  the  permission  of  her  husband,  how 
obtained  it  is  not  known,  she  left  Soissons  and  went  to  Noyon 
to  the  bishop  Medard,  who  had  great  influence  over  the  king 
and  all  the  nation. 

She  found  him  at  the  altar  where  he  was  celebrating  mass, 
and  besought  him  to  consecrate  her  to  God  by  giving  her  the 
veil.  The  bishop  hesitated  and  resisted ;  the  Frank  lords 
who  were  present  surrounded  him,  brought  him  down  from 
the  altar  with  violence,  and  forbade  him  to  consecrate  to 
God  a  woman  whom  the  king  had  made  a  queen  by  public 
marriage.  Radegund  then  took  from  the  sacristy  the  dress 
of  a  nun,  in  which  she  clothed  herself,  and,  returning  to  the 
altar,  said  to  the  bishop,  "  If  thou  delayest  to  consecrate  me, 
if  thou  fearest  man  more  than  God,  the  Good  Shepherd  will 
demand  an  account  from  thee  of  the  soul  of  one  of  His  sheep." 
Medard  was  thunderstruck  by  these  words,  and  immediately 
laid  his  hands  on  her,  and  consecrated  her  a  deaconess.^ 
Clotaire  himself  did  not  venture  at  first  to  interfere  with 
what  had  been  done.  The  new  nun,  using  her  recognised 
freedom,  went  from  sanctuary  to  sanctuary,  dropping  every- 
where, in  the  form  of  offerings,  her  ornaments  and  queenly 
robes.  Crossing  the  Loire,  she  arrived  first  at  Tours,  at  the 
tomb  of  St,  Martin,  to  which  pilgrims  and  the  unfortunate 
resorted  from  all  parts  of  Christendom,  and  where  she  per- 
haps found  her  illustrious  mother-in-law  Clotilda,  who  had 
come  to  await  death  near  the  holy  tomb,^  She  afterwards 
established  herself  in  the  lands  of  Saix,  in  Poitou,  which  her 
husband  had  granted  her ;  and  there,  living  a  truly  recluse 
life,  she  began  to  practise  the  most  rigorous  austerities,  and 

"  Ne  velaret  regi  conjuctam.  .  ,  .  Reginam  non  publicanam,  sed 
publicam.  .  ,  .  Introns  in  sacrarium,  monachica  vesta  induitur,  ,  .  , 
Quod  ille  contestationis  concussus  tonitruo." — Bolland.,  loc.  cit.,  p.  70. 

'  Mabillon  fixes  her  death  in  544.     The  Bollandists  (die  3  Junii)  mention 
no  precise  date. 


172  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

especially  lavished  her  cares  upon  the  poor  and  sick,  and 
rendered  them  the  most  repulsive  services.  After  having 
bathed  the  lepers  v^ith  her  own  hands,  she  kissed  their  dis- 
gusting sores.  "  Holy  lady,"  said  one  of  her  servants,  one 
day,  "  who  will  kiss  you,  if  you  thus  kiss  the  lepers  ?  " 
"  Well,"  said  she,  smiling,  "  if  thou  dost  never  kiss  me  again, 
that  is  nothing  to  me."  ^ 

However,  her  fame  so  spread  that  Clotaire,  whose  love 
was  revived  by  absence,  set  out  to  reclaim  her.^  She  then 
took  refuge  at  the  tomb  of  St.  Hilary,  in  Poitiers ;  and  he, 
again  overcome  by  religious  fear,  gave  her  permission  to 
build  a  monastery  for  women  at  Poitiers,  and  to  seclude 
herself  in  it.  When  this  cloister  was  completed,  she  en- 
tered it  triumphantly  amid  popular  rejoicings,  making  her 
way  through  crowds  of  spectators,  who,  after  filling  all  the 
streets  and  squares,  covered  even  the  roofs  of  houses  from 
which  they  could  see  her  pass.^ 

But  she  was  soon  assailed  by  new  terrors.  She  heard 
that  under  pretext  of  devotion  Clotaire  had  arrived  at  Tours, 
and  that  he  had  arranged  to  come  to  Poitiers  to  seek  her 
whom  he  called  his  dear  queen.  The  holy  bishop  Medard 
could  no  longer  use  his  influence  to  defend  her :  he  was 
just  dead.  But  the  illustrious  Bishop  of  Paris,  Germain, 
was  still  living :  she  wrote  to  him,  adjuring  him  to  persuade 
the  king  to  respect  her  vow.  The  bishop  sought  the  king 
before  the  tomb  of  St.  Martin,  and  supplicated  him  on  his 
knees,  weeping,  not  to  go  to  Poitiers.  Clotaire  recognised 
the  voice  of  Radegnnd  through  the  words  of  Germain,  but 
recognised  at  the  same  time  how  unworthy  he  himself  was 
to  have  for  his  queen  a  woman  who  had  always  preferred 
God's  will  to  her  own.  He  knelt  in  his  turn  before  the 
bishop,  and  begged  him  to  go  and  ask  pardon  of  that  saint 

^  "  Sanctissima  domina,  quis  te  osculabitur,  quie  sic  leprossos  complec- 
teris?  .  .  .  Vere,  si  me  non  oscnleris,  hinc  mihi  non  cura  est." — P.  71. 
2  "Fit  sonus  quasi  rex  earn  iterum  vellet  accipere." — P.  76. 
'  BOLLAND.,  loc.  cit.,  p.  76. 


THE   FIRST   MEROVINGIANS  173 

for  all  the  wrong  which  evil  counsels  had  made  him  under- 
take against  her.  And  from  this  time  he  left  her  in  peace.'^ 
Radegund  then  employed  herself  in  constituting  upon  a 
solid  foundation  the  community  in  which  she  was  to  pass 
the  last  forty  years  of  her  life.  This  community  was  very 
numerous :  the  queen's  presence  attracted  to  it  nearly  two 
hundred  young  girls  of  various  races  and  conditions,  and 
amongst  these  Gauls  of  senatorial  family,  and  Frank  prin- 
cesses of  Merovingian  blood.^  But  she  would  not  govern 
them  herself,  and  caused  a  young  girl  named  Agnes,  whom 
she  had  herself  trained,  to  be  elected  abbess.  Eestricting 
herself  severely  to  the  rank  and  obligations  of  a  simple  nun, 
she  took  her  turn  in  cooking,  in  carrying  wood  and  water, 
and  in  cleaning  away  the  filth  ;  while,  notwithstanding,  she 
pursued  her  studies  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  especially  continued  with  the  most  courageous  persever- 
ance her  care  of  the  poor.^  But  this  sincere  and  active 
humility  did  not  prevent  her  from  being  considered  by  all 
the  nuns,  as  well  as  by  the  whole  Church,  the  true  superior 
of  the  monastery  which  she  had  founded.  At  her  petition, 
the  bishops  of  the  second  Council  of  Tours  sanctioned  the 
irrevocable  vows  of  virgins  consecrated  to  God,  according 
to  the  rule  of  St.  Caesarius,  for  she  went  as  far  as  Aries  to 
study  and  bring  back  the  wise  and  severe  rule  which  that 
great  bishop  had  instituted  there,  a  century  before,  for  the 
monastery  governed  by  his  sister/     She  had  need  of  that 

1  "Jam  per  internuntios  cognoverat.  .  .  .  Quasi  devotionis  causa  .  .  . 
nt  suam  reginam  acciperet.  .  .  .  Sacramentales  litteras  fecit.  .  .  .  Pro- 
sternit  se  et  ille  ante  limina  S.  Martini  pedibus  apostolici  viri." — Bolland., 
loc.  cit.,  p.  76. 

2  Geeg.  Tueon.,  De  Glor.  Confessor.,  c.  106. 

3  "  Monachabus  soporantibus  calceamenta  tergens  et  ungens.  .  .  . 
Scopans  monasterii  plateas  .  .  .  secretum  etiam  opus  purgare  non  tardans, 
sed  scopans  ferebat  foetores  stercorum  ;  credebat  se  minorem  sibi,  si  se 
non  nobilitaret  servitii  vilitate  .  .  .  capita  lavans  egenorum  .  .  .  mulieres 
variis  leprae  perfusas  maculis  comprehend  ens  in  amplexibus." — BoLLiLND., 
pp.  68,  72. 

4  See  above,  vol,  i.  p.  354, 


174  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

protection  from  without,  for  the  Bishop  of  Poitiers,  Merov^e, 
showed  an  inveterate  hostility  to  her  all  her  life.-^ 

On  the  other  hand,  to  adorn  still  better  her  dear  sanc- 
tuary, she  sent  to  the  Emperor  Justin  at  Constantinople  to 
ask  for  a  fragment  of  the  true  cross,  which  he  granted  to 
her.  A  new  Helena,  she  received  with  transports  of  joy  the 
holy  relic  which  gave  its  name  to  her  monastery ;  and  the 
sublime  accents  of  the  Vexilla  regis  and  of  the  Pange  lingua 
echoed  for  the  first  time  in  the  ears  of  the  faithful  upon 
the  occasion  of  its  arrival — new  hymns  with  which  that 
solemnity  inspired  the  poet  Venantius  Fortunatus,  and 
which  all  the  Church  has  sung  since  then. 

This  Fortunatus^  was  an  Italian,  who,  coming  to  visit 
the  sanctuaries  of  Gaul,  had  established  himself  at  Poitiers. 
He  became,  long  after,  the  bishop  of  that  city,  and  the 
biographer  of  Kadegund,  but  then  was  only  famed  for  his 
poetical  talents.  The  cloistered  queen  made  him  her  secre- 
tary, and  the  intendant  of  the  goods  of  the  monastery.  In 
verses  where  classic  recollections  and  literary  graces  mingle 
perhaps  too  often  with  the  inspirations  of  the  Catholic  faith, 
he  enters  into  many  curious  and  valuable  details  of  the 
touching  intimacy  which  existed  between  himself,  the 
abbess  Agnes,  and  Radegund.^  He  often  speaks  in  the 
name  of  the  latter,  especially  in  one  celebrated  passage, 
where  he  supposes  the  queen  to  retain,  after  having  reached 
the  age  of  fifty,  a  poignant  and  impassioned  recollection  of 
her  ravaged  country,  her  murdered  family,  and  of  a  cousin 
who  had  by  that  time  found  a  refuge  at  Constantinople,  and 
who  had  perhaps  shared  the  first  days  of  her  captivity,  when 
she  herself,  led  into  bondage,  had  left  her  Germanic  father- 
land for  ever. 

1  Greg.  Tueon.,  Hist.,  lib.  ix.  c.  39,  40. 

2  Born  at  Ceneda,  near  Trevise,  in  530.  He  became  Bishop  of  Poitiers 
only  in  599,  twelve  years  after  the  death  of  Radegund. 

3  We  refer  again  to  the  peremptory  refutation  which  M.  Gorini  has 
given  to  the  erroneous  suppositions  of  MM.  Ampere  and  Augustin  Thierry 
with  regard  to  that  friendship. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  175 

As  it  has  been  said  that  Radegund  herself  had  dictated 
these  verses,  which  breathe  the  sentiment  of  true  poetry,  we 
shall  quote  some  passages,  literally  translated  : — 

"  When  the  wind  murmurs,  I  listen  if  it  brings  me  some 
news,  but  of  all  my  kindred  not  even  a  shadow  presents 
itself  to  me.  .  .  .  And  thou,  Amalafried,  gentle  son  of  my 
father's  brother,  does  no  anxiety  for  me  consume  thy  heart  ? 
Hast  thou  forgotten  what  Radegund  was  to  thee  in  thy 
earliest  years,  and  how  much  thou  lovedst  me,  and  how  thou 
heldst  the  place  of  the  father,  mother,  brother,  and  sister 
whom  I  had  lost  ?  An  hour  absent  from  thee  seemed  to 
me  eternal  :  now  ages  pass,  and  I  never  hear  a  word  from 
thee.  A  whole  world  now  lies  betwixt  those  who  loved 
each  other,  and  who  of  old  were  never  separate.  If  others, 
for  pity  alone,  cross  the  Alps  to  seek  their  lost  slaves,  where- 
fore am  I  forgotten,  I  who  am  bound  to  thee  by  blood  ? 
Where  art  thou  ?  I  ask  the  wind  as  it  sighs,  the  clouds  as 
they  pass ;  at  least  some  bird  might  bring  me  news  of  thee. 
If  the  holy  enclosure  of  this  monastery  did  not  restrain  me, 
thou  shouldst  see  me  suddenly  appear  beside  thee.  I  could 
cross  the  stormy  seas,  in  winter,  if  it  was  necessary.  The 
tempest  that  alarms  the  sailors  should  cause  no  fear  to  me 
who  love  thee.  If  my  vessel  were  dashed  to  pieces  by  the 
tempest,  I  should  cling  to  a  plank  to  reach  thee ;  and  if  I 
could  find  nothing  to  cling  to,  I  should  go  to  thee  swimming, 
exhausted!  If  I  could  but  see  thee  once  more,  I  should  deny 
all  the  perils  of  the  journey  ;  and  if  I  died  by  the  way,  thou 
shouldst  make  me  a  grave  in  the  sand,  and  in  burying  me 
shouldst  weep  for  her,  dead,  whose  tears,  when  living,  thou 
disdainedst."  ^ 

^  "  Specto  libens  aliquam  si  nuntiet  aura  salutem, 

NuUaque  de  cunctis  umbra  parentis  adest.  .  .  . 

An  quod  in  absenti  te  nee  mea  cura  remordet, 
Affectum  dulcem  cladis  amara  tulit  ? 

Vel  memor  esto,  tuis  primEevis  qualis  ab  annis, 
Hamalefrede,  tibi  tunc  Radegundes  eram. 

Quantam  me  quondam  dulcis  dilexeris  infans.  .  .  . 


176  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

But  if  the  holy  recluse  permitted  the  Italian  poet  to 
invoke,  in  her  name,  those  passionate  images  of  the  past, 
of  her  country,  and  her  young  affections,  no  trace  of  them 
appeared  in  her  life.  On  the  contrary,  she  had  concentrated 
all  the  warmth  of  her  tenderness  upon  her  monastic  family. 
When  she  saw  all  her  young  and  numerous  brood  collected 
round  her,  she  constantly  addressed  them  thus  :  "  I  love  you 
so  much,  that  I  remember  no  longer  that  I  have  had  rela- 
tions and  married  a  king.  I  no  longer  love  anything  but 
you,  young  girls  whom  I  have  chosen,  young  flowers  whom 
I  have  planted — you,  my  eyes  and  my  life,  my  rest  and  my 
happiness  !  "  ^  Thus  surrounded,  she  could  forget  all  the 
outer  world.  One  evening,  as  Fortunatus  himself  relates, 
towards  the  close  of  day,  some  musicians  passed  the 
walls  of  the  monastery  dancing  and  singing  loudly.  The 
saint  was  at  prayers  with  two  of  her  sisters  ;  one  of  them 
said  to  her  gaily,  "  Madam,  these  dancers  are  singing  one 

Vixerat  in  spatium,  quo  te  minus  hora  referret ; 
Saecula  nunc  fugiunt,  nee  tua  verba  fero.  .  .   . 
Inter  amatores  totusque  interjacet  orbis.  .  .  . 
Si  famulos  alii,  pietatis  lege,  requirunt, 

Cur  ego  prseterear,  sanguine  juncta  parens  ?  .  .  . 
Qu£e  loca  te  teneant,  si  sibilat  aura,  require  ; 
Nubila  si  volites,  pendula  posco  locum.  .  .  . 
Prospera  vel  veniens  nuntia  ferret  avis  ! 
Sacra  monasterii  si  me  non  claustra  tenerent, 
Improvisa  aderam,  qua  regione  sedes.  .  .   . 
Et  quod  nauta  timet  non  pavitasset  amans.  .  ,  . 
Ad  te  venissem,  lassa,  natante  manu. 
Cum  te  respicerem,  peregrina  pericla  negassem.  .  .  . 

Vel  tumulum  manibus  ferret  arena  tuis.  .  .  . 
Qui  spernis  vitse  flatus,  lacrymatus  humares." 
M.  Augustin  Thierry  has  reproduced  the  complete  text  of  this  poem,  en- 
titled De  Excidio  Thuringice  ex  Persona  Radegundis,  at  the  end  of  his  Ricits 
Merovingiens,  taking  advantage  of  the  various  readings  discovered  by  M. 
Guerard. 

^  "  In  tantum  dilexit,  ut  etiam  parentis  vel  regem  conjugem  se  habuisse, 
quod  frequenter  nobis  etiam  dum  prtedicabat,  dicebat  :  .  .  .  Vos,  lumina  ; 
vos,  mea  vita ;  .  .  .  vos,  novella  plantatio." — Baudonivia,  Monialis 
Jiqualis,  ap.  BOLLAND.,  p.  77. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  177 

of  the  airs  which  I  used  to  sing  myself  in  old  times." 
"  Truly,"  said  the  queen,  "  I  wonder  that,  belonging  to  the 
Lord,  you  can  take  pleasure  in  listening  to  these  worldly 
sounds."  "  But,  indeed,"  answered  the  sister,  "  it  is  because 
I  hear  two  or  three  of  my  own  songs,"  "  Well,  well !  as  for 
me,"  said  the  queen,  "  I  take  God  to  witness  that  I  have  not 
heard  a  single  note  of  that  profane  music."  ^ 

However,  governed  by  these  affections  of  the  cloister 
and  thoughts  of  heaven  as  she  was,  she  retained,  notwith- 
standing, an  anxious  solicitude  for  the  interests  of  the  royal 
house  and  the  country  of  her  marriage.  At  the  height  of 
the  struggles  between  her  daughters-in-law,  the  atrocious 
Fredegund  and  Brunehault,  she  perpetually  interposed  to 
preach  peace  and  reconciliation.  The  salvation  of  the 
country,  says  the  faithful  companion  of  her  life,  was  always 
in  her  mind  ;  she  trembled  through  all  her  frame  when  she 
heard  of  some  new  rupture.  Although  she,  perhaps,  inclined 
towards  the  side  of  Brunehault  and  her  children,  she  in- 
cluded all  the  Merovingian  princes  in  her  love.  She  wrote 
to  all  the  kings,  one  after  the  other,  and  then  to  the  prin- 
cipal lords,  adjuring  them  to  watch  over  the  true  interests  of 
the  people  and  the  country.  "  Peace  between  the  kings  is 
my  victory,"  she  said  ;  and  to  obtain  this  from  the  celes- 
tial King,  she  engaged  the  prayers  of  all  her  community, 
and  redoubled,  for  her  own  part,  her  fasts,  penances,  and 
charity.^ 

^  "  Inter  choraulas  et  citharas  .  .  .  multo  fremitu  cantaretur.  .  .  . 
Domina,  recognovi  unam  de  meis  canticis  a  saltantibus  prasdicari.  .  .  . 
Vere,  Domina,  duas  et  ties  hie  modo  meas  canticas  audivi  quas  tenuit." 
— Venantius  Foetunat.,  ibid.,  p.  74.  These  two  sketches,  which  M. 
Thierry  has  not  thought  proper  to  draw  from  sources  which  he  has  so  often 
quoted,  might  have  sufficed  to  refute  most  of  his  assertions. 

-  "  Semper  de  salute  patriae  curiasa  .  .  .  quia  totos  diligebat  reges.  .  .  . 
Tota  tremebat,  et  quales  litteras  uni,  tales  dirigebat  alteri.  .  .  .  Ut,  eis  reg- 
nantibus,  populi  et  patria  salubrior  redderetur." — Baudonivia,  loc.  cit.,  p. 
78.  Compare  p.  80,  on  Brunehault.  This  is  an  excellent  answer  to  that 
professor  who  wrote,  some  years  ago,  that  the  word  patrie  was  unknown  in 
the  Christian  world  before  the  Renaissance. 

VOL.   II.  M 


178  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

For  this  woman,  who  is  represented  to  us  as  "  seeking  a 
sort  of  compromise  between  monastic  austerity  and  the 
softened  and  elegant  habits  of  civilised  society,"  ^  was  not 
only  the  first  to  practise  what  she  taught  to  others,  but 
actually  inflicted  tortures  upon  herself  to  reduce  her  flesh 
more  completely  into  servitude.  It  is  true  that,  full  of  in- 
dulgence for  her  companions,  she  permitted  them  frequent 
intercourse  with  their  friends  outside,  repasts  in  common, 
and  even  dramatic  entertainments,  the  custom  of  which  was 
then  introduced,  and  long  maintained  in  the  learned  com- 
munities of  the  middle  ages. 2  But  she  refused  for  her- 
self every  recreation  or  softening  of  the  rule.  She  went 
so  far  as  to  heat  a  metal  cross  in  the  fire  and  stamp  it 
upon  her  flesh,  which  was  still  too  delicate  to  satisfy 
her,  as  the  sacred  stigmata  of  her  love  for  the  crucified 
Saviour.3 

Till  the  time  of  her  death  she  wore  upon  her  naked  flesh 
an  iron  chain,  which  she  had  received  as  a  gift  from  a  lord 
of  Poitou,  named  Junian,  who  had,  like  herself,  quitted  the 
world  for  a  life  of  solitude,  and  who  kept  together  by  the 
bond  of  charity  a  numerous  body  of  monks  under  the  rule 
which  the  beloved  disciple  of  Benedict  had  just  brought  into 
Gaul.  A  worthy  rival  of  the  charity  of  Eadegund,  he  sup- 
ported, at  great  expense,  herds  of  cattle  and  rich  poultry 
yards,  in  order  to  give  the  poor  peasants  oxen  for  ploughing, 
clothes,  eggs,  and  cheese,  and  even  fowls  for  the  sick.  He 
wore  no  other  dress  than  the  woollen  robes  which  the  queen 
span  for  him.  They  had  agreed  to  pray  for  each  other  after 
their  death ;  they  died  on  the  same  day,  at  the  same  hour, 
and  the  messengers,  who  left  at  once  the  St.  Croix  of  Poitiers 

^  Aug.  Thieery,  Rdcits  Mirovingiens,  t.  ii.  p.  153,  7th  edition. 

'  "Barbatorias  intus  eo  quod  celebraverit.  .  .  .  De  tabula  vero  re- 
spondit,  et  si  lusisset  vivente  Domna  Radegunde.  .  .  ,  De  conviviis  ait 
se  nuUam  novam  fecisse  consuetudinem,  nisi  sicut  actum  est  sub  Domna 
Radegunde."— Greg.  Tur.,  Hist.,  x.  245.  Compare  Magnin,  Journal  des 
Savants,  May  i860. 

=*  Venant.  FOKTUNAT.,  loc.  cit. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 79 

and  the  cloister  inhabited  by  Junian,  met  half-way  with  the 
same  melancholy  news.-^ 

Gregory  of  Tours  celebrated  the  funeral  of  the  holy  queen, 
and  tells  us  that  even  in  her  coffin  her  beauty  was  still  dazz- 
ling. Around  this  coffin  the  two  hundred  nuns  whom  she 
had  drawn  from  the  world  to  give  them  to  God,  chanted  a 
kind  of  plaintive  eclogue,  in  which  they  celebrated  the  virtues 
of  their  abbess  and  the  love  with  which  she  inspired  them. 
Then  when  Gregory  conducted  the  body  to  the  grave,  where 
the  seclusion  prescribed  by  the  rule  of  St.  Csesarius  debarred 
the  nuns  from  following,  he  saw  them  press  to  the  windows, 
and  to  the  towers  and  battlements  of  the  monastery,  where 
their  lamentations,  tears,  and  the  wringing  of  their  hands, 
rendered  a  last  homage  to  their  royal  foundress.^  Before 
her  death  she  had  made  a  kind  of  will,  in  which  she  took 
no  title  but  that  of  Radegund,  sinner,  and  in  which  she  put 
her  dear  monastery  under  the  charge  of  St.  Martin  and  St. 
Hilary,  adjuring  the  bishops  and  kings  to  treat  as  spoilers 
and  persecutors  of  the  poor  all  who  should  attempt  to 
disturb  the  community,  to  change  its  rule,  or  dispossess  its 
abbess. 

But  it  was  rather  from  internal  disorders  than  outside 
enemies  that  her  work  required  to  be  preserved.      Even  in 

^  "  Sub  B.  Benedicti  regula.  .  .  .  Tantae  charitatis  glutino  omnem 
monachorum  catervan  constrinxerat.  .  .  .  Quem  S.  Eadegundis  sacrificiis 
suis  fovebat.  .  .  .  Nee  aliud  tegminis  habuit,  nisi  quod  ab  ilia  conficie- 
batur.  .  .  .  Sed  et  ilia  sanctissima  catenam  ferri  ab  illo  sanctissimo  viro 
accepit.  .  .  .  Declarat  mandatum  ut  statim  cum  a  sasculo  migrasset 
nuntiaretur  B.  Eadegundis."— Wulfinus  Epise.,  Vit.  8.  Juniani,  ap. 
Labbe,  Nov.  Bibl.  MS.,  t.  ii.  p.  572.  This  Junian,  abbot  of  Maire  in  Poitou, 
must  not  be  confounded  with  another  St.  Junian,  hermit,  after  whom  the 
town  of  that  name  in  Limousin  was  called.  Compare  Bolland.,  vol.  iii. 
Aug.,  p.  32,  and  vol.  vii.  Octobr.,  p.  841. 

-  "Eeperimus  earn  jacentem  in  feretro,  cujus  sancta  facies  ita  fulgebat 
ut  liliorum  rosarumque  sperneret  pulchritudinem." — Gheg.  Tueon.  "Tran- 
seuntibus  nobis  sub  muro,  iterum  caterva  virginum  per  fenestras  turrium 
et  ipsa  quoque  muri  propugnacula  ...  ita  ut  inter  sonos  fietuum  atque 
conlisiones  palmarum." — De  Gloria  Confess.,  c.  106.  Compare  Magnin, 
loc.  cit. 


l80  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

her  own  lifetime  one  of  the  nuns  had  escaped  over  the  wall 
of  the  abbey,  and  taking  refuge  in  the  church  of  St.  Hilary, 
had  poured  forth  a  hundred  calumnies  against  the  abbess. 
She  had  been  made  to  re-enter  the  monastery,  hoisted  up 
by  ropes,  at  the  same  part  of  the  rampart  by  which  she 
descended,  and  had  acknowledged  the  falsehood  of  her 
accusations  against  Agnes  and  Radegund.'^ 

After  their  death  matters  were  still  worse.  Among  the 
Frank  princesses  whom  she  had  led  or  received  into  the 
shadow  of  the  sanctuary  of  St.  Croix,  there  were  two  who 
retained  all  the  Barbarian  vehemence,  and  who,  far  from 
profiting  by  the  example  of  the  widow  of  Clotaire,  showed 
themselves  only  too  faithful  to  the  blood  of  their  grandsire. 
These  were  Chrodield,  daughter  of  King  Caribert,  and  the 
unfortunate  Basine,  daughter  of  King  Chilperic  and  Queen 
Audovere,  whom  Fredegund,  her  infamous  mother-in-law, 
had  cast  into  the  cloister,  after  having  had  her  dishonoured 
by  her  valets.^  At  the  death  of  the  abbess  Agnes,  who  soon 
followed  her  benefactress  to  the  grave,  Chrodield,  irritated 
at  not  having  been  elected  in  her  place,  formed  a  plot  against 
the  new  abbess  Leubovere,  and  left  the  monastery  with  her 
cousin  and  forty  other  nuns,  saying,  "  I  go  to  the  kings  my 
relations  to  let  them  know  the  ignominy  which  has  been 
inflicted  on  us,  for  we  have  been  treated  here  not  like  the 
daughters  of  kings  but  like  the  daughters  of  miserable 
slaves."  Without  listening  to  the  remonstrances  of  the 
bishops  they  broke  the  locks  and  doors,  and  went  on  foot 
from  Poitiers  to  Tours,  where  they  arrived  panting,  worn, 
and  exhausted,  by  roads  flooded  by  the  great  rains,  and 
without  having  eaten  anything  on  the  road.  Chrodield 
presented  herself  to  Gregory  of  Tours,  who  read  to  the  party 
the  sentence  of  excommunication  pronounced  by  the  Council 
of  Tours  against  nuns  guilty  of  breaking  their  seclusion, 
entreated  them  not  to  destroy  thus  the  work  of  the  holy 
queen  Eadegund,  and  offered  to  conduct  them  back  to 
1  Greg.  Turon.,  Hist.  Eccl.,  lib.  x.  c.  40.  ^  lUd.,  lib.  v,  c.  40, 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  l8l 

Poitiers.  " No,  no,"  said  Chrodield ;  "we  are  going  to 
the  kings." 

Gregory  succeeded  in  persuading  them  to  wait  at  least 
for  the  summer.  The  fine  weather  having  come,  Chrodield 
left  her  cousin  and  her  companions  at  Tours,  and  went  to 
her  uncle  Gontran,  king  of  Burgundy,  who  received  her 
well,  and  named  certain  bishops  to  investigate  the  quarrel. 
Eeturning  to  Tours,  she  found  that  several  of  the  fugitives 
had  allowed  themselves  to  be  seduced  and  married.  With 
those  that  remained  she  returned  to  Poitiers,  and  they  in- 
stalled themselves  in  the  Church  of  St.  Hilary  with  a  troop 
of  robbers  and  bandits  to  defend  them,  saying  always,  "  We 
are  queens,  and  we  will  only  return  to  the  monastery  when 
the  abbess  is  expelled  from  it."  The  metropolitan  of  Bor- 
deaux then  appeared  with  the  Bishop  of  Poitiers  and  two 
others  of  his  suffragans,  and,  upon  their  obstinate  refusal  to 
return  to  their  monastery,  excommunicated  them.  But  the 
bandits  whom  they  had  hired  for  their  defence  attacked  the 
bishops,  threw  them  down  upon  the  pavement  of  the  church, 
and  broke  the  heads  of  several  deacons  in  their  suite.  A 
panic  seized  the  episcopal  train :  every  man  saved  himself 
as  he  could.  Chrodield  afterwards  sent  her  followers  to 
seize  the  lands  of  the  monastery,  made  the  vassals  obey  her 
by  dint  of  blows,  and  threatened  always,  if  she  returned  to 
the  monastery,  to  throw  the  abbess  over  the  walls.  King 
Childebert,  the  Count  of  Poitou,  and  the  bishops  of  the 
province  of  Lyons,  interfered  in  turn  without  any  better 
success.  This  lasted  for  a  whole  year.  The  cold  of  winter 
constrained  the  rebels  to  separate,  for  they  had  no  other 
shelter  than  the  church,  where  they  could  not  make  a  suf- 
ficient fire  to  keep  themselves  warm.'^ 

Discords,  however,  arose  between  the  two  cousins,  who 
each  assumed  to  be  leader,  by  her  right  as  a  princess  of  the 

^  "  Vado  ad  parentes  meos  reges  .  .  .  quia  non  ut  filise  regum,  sed  ut 
malarum  ancillarum  genit^  in  hoc  loco  humiliamur.  .  .  .  Pedestri  itinere 
.  .  .  anhelae  et  satis  exiguse.  .  .  .  Nequaquam,  sed  ad  reges  ibimus.  .  .  . 


I  82  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

royal  blood.  But  Chrodield  maintained  her  supremacy ; 
she  took  advantage  of  it  to  adopt  still  more  violent  measures, 
and  sent  her  troop  of  bandits  against  the  monastery.  They 
made  their  way  into  it  by  night,  with  arms  in  their  hands, 
forcing  the  doors  with  axes,  and  seized  the  abbess,  who, 
helpless  with  gout,  and  scarcely  able  to  walk,  was  roused  by 
the  noise  to  go  and  prostrate  herself  before  the  shrine  which 
enclosed  the  true  cross.  They  dragged  her,  half  naked,  to 
the  Church  of  St.  Hilary,  and  shut  her  up  there  in  the 
portion  inhabited  by  Basine.  Chrodield  gave  orders  to 
poniard  her  upon  the  spot,  if  the  bishop  or  any  other  person 
endeavoured  to  set  her  at  liberty.  After  this  she  pillaged 
her  ancient  monastery  from  top  to  bottom ;  many  nuns  were 
wounded,  and  the  servants  faithful  to  the  abbess  were  killed 
upon  the  very  sepulchre  of  Radegund,  Basine,  wounded  by 
the  pride  of  her  cousin,  took  advantage  of  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  captive  abbess  to  attempt  a  reconciliation  with 
her  ;  but  it  was  without  result. 

These  battles  and  murders  continued  at  a  still  greater 
rate,  until  finally  the  kings  Gontran  of  Burgundy,  and 
Childebert  of  Austrasia,  uncle  and  cousin  of  the  two  principal 
culprits,  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  this  disgraceful  scandal. 
They  convoked  the  bishops  anew ;  but  Gregory  of  Tours 
declared  that  they  could  on  no  account  assemble  till  sedition 
had  been  suppressed  by  the  secular  arm.  Then  the  Count 
of  Poitiers,  supported  apparently  by  the  entire  population 
of  the  town,  made  a  formal  attack  upon  the  basilica  built  by 
Radegund,  which  had  been  transformed  into  a  citadel.  It 
was  in  vain  that  Chrodield  ordered  a  sortie  of  her  satellites, 
and  that,  seeing  them  repulsed,  she  advanced  to  meet  the 
besiegers,  the  cross  in  her  hand,  crying,  "  Do  nothing  to  me, 
for  I  am  a  queen,  daughter  of  a  king,  cousin  and  niece  of 

Quia  reginss  sumus,  nee  prius  in  monasterium  nostrum  ingrediemur,  nisi 
abbatissa  ejiciatur  foras.  .  .  .  Cum  efEractis  capitibus.  .  .  .  Minans  ut 
.  .  .  abbatissam  de  muro  projectam  terrae  dejiceret.  .  .  .  Propter  penuriam 
ligni.  .  .  ."—Greg.  Turon.,  Hist.  Eccl.,  lib.  ix.  c.  39,  43. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 83 

your  kings  :  do  nothing  to  me,  or  the  time  will  come  when 
I  shall  avenge  myself."  Her  person  was  respected.  But 
her  bravoes  were  seized  and  executed  in  various  ways. 
Then  the  bishops  proceeded,  in  the  very  church  which  had 
been  thus  delivered,  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  contest. 
Chrodield,  who  was  not  cast  down  by  her  defeat,  constituted 
herself  the  accuser  of  the  abbess ;  she  reproached  this  poor 
bedridden  gouty  woman  with  having  a  man  in  her  service 
dressed  like  a  woman,  with  playing  dice,  eating  with  secular 
persons,  and  other  still  less  serious  imputations.  She  com- 
plained at  the  same  time  that  she  and  her  companions  had 
neither  food  nor  clothing,  and  that  they  had  been  beaten. 
The  abbess  defended  herself  without  difficulty ;  the  two 
princesses  were  obliged  to  confess  that  they  had  no  capital 
crime,  such  as  homicide  or  adultery,  to  allege  against  her ; 
whilst  the  bishops  reminded  them  that  some  of  the  nuns  of 
their  own  party  had  fallen  into  sin,  in  consequence  of  the 
disorder  into  which  their  leaders  had  plunged  them.  Not- 
withstanding, they  refused  to  ask  pardon  of  the  abbess — 
threatened  loudly,  on  the  contrary,  to  kill  her.^  The  bishops 
then  declared  them  excommunicated,  and  re-established  the 
abbess  in  the  monastery  of  which  she  had  been  deprived. 
Even  then  the  rebel  princesses  did  not  submit :  they  went 
to  their  cousin,  King  Childebert,  and  denounced  the  abbess 
to  him  as  sending  daily  messages  to  his  enemy  Fredegund. 
He  was  weak  enough  to  recommend  his  cousins  to  the 
bishops  who  were  about  to  meet  for  a  new  council  at  Metz. 
But  there  Basine  finally  separated  from  her  cousin ;  she 
threw  herself  at  the  feet  of  the  bishops,  asked  their  pardon, 
and  promised  to  return  to  St.  Croix  of  Poitiers,  to  live  there 
according  to  the  rule.      Chrodield,  on  the  contrary,  declared 

1  "  Statim  cum  gladio  percute.  .  .  .  Nolite  super  me,  quseso,  vim  inferre, 
quae  sum  regina,  filia  regis,  regisque  alterius  consobrina.  .  .  .  Sed  vulgus 
parvipendens.  .  .  .  Contra  comitem  et  plebem.  .  .  .  Quas  credebamus 
innocentes  monachas  nobis  protulerunt  prsegnantes.  .  .  .  De  ejus  interfec- 
tione  tractarent,  quod  publice  sunt  professEe." — Gkeg.  Tukon.,  Sist.  Eecl., 
lib.  X.  c.  16. 


1 84  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

that  she  would  never  set  foot  in  it  while  the  abbess  remained 
there ;  and  the  result  was,  that  they  permitted  her  to  live 
near  Poitiers  on  an  estate  given  her  by  the  king. 

This  confused  contrast  of  so  many  crimes  and  so  many 
virtues ;  these  monks,  whose  charity  to  their  neighbour  was 
only  equalled  by  their  severity  to  themselves,  and  these 
bandits  commanded  by  debauched  nuns  ;  these  daughters 
of  Frank  and  German  kings,  some  transfigured  by  faith  and 
poetry,  while  others  were  suffering  or  inflicting  the  most 
infamous  outrages  ;  these  kings  by  turns  ferocious  and 
amiable  ;  this  great  bishop  standing  near  the  tomb  of  his 
immortal  predecessor,  and  preaching  order  and  peace  to 
all ;  these  murders  and  sacrileges  face  to  face  with  the  im- 
passioned worship  of  the  most  venerable  relic ;  the  boldness 
and  long  impunity  of  crime  side  by  side  with  so  many  pro- 
digies of  fervour  and  austerity  ;  in  a  word,  this  mingled 
crowd  of  saints  and  villains,  offers  the  most  faithful  picture 
of  the  long  combat  waged  by  Christian  dignity  and  Chris- 
tian virtue  against  the  violence  of  the  Barbarians,  and  the 
vices  of  the  Gallo-Romans  enervated  by  long  subjection  to 
despotism.  Monks  and  nuns  were  the  heroes  and  instru- 
ments of  that  struggle.  It  lasted  for  two  centuries  longer 
before  it  gave  way  to  the  luminous  and  powerful  age  of  the 
first  Oarlovingians,  and  was  renewed  at  a  later  period  under 
new  forms  and  against  new  assailants. 

In  the  same  year  which  saw  all  Gaul  south  of  the  Loire 
disturbed  by  this  scandal,  the  famous  monastery  of  Luxeuil, 
founded  by  a  Celtic  missionary,  St.  Columba,  and  destined 
to  become  for  a  time  the  monastic  metropolis  of  the  Frank 
dominions,  came  into  being  at  the  other  extremity  of  the 
country,  at  the  foot  of  the  Vosges,  between  the  Rhone  and 
the  Rhine.  Here  we  must  hereafter  seek  the  centre  of 
monastic  life  in  Gaul,  and  study  the  action  of  the  monks 
upon  the  kingdom  and  people  of  the  Franks. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 85 


V. — The  Monks  and  Nature. 

The  Lord  shall  comfort  Zion  :  He  will  comfort  all  her  waste  places  ; 
and  He  will  make  her  wilderness  like  Eden,  and  her  desert  like 
the  garden  of  the  Lord  ;  joy  and  gladness  shall  be  found  therein, 
thanksgiving,  and  the  voice  of  melody.— ISA.  li.  3. 

But  before  we  study  the  action  of  the  great  Celtic  mis- 
sionary upon  the  kingdom  and  people  of  the  Franks,  it  is 
important  to  observe  one  of  the  distinct  characteristics  of 
the  monastic  occupation  of  Gaul.  We  should  greatly  deceive 
ourselves  did  we  suppose  that  the  monks  chose  the  Gallo- 
Roman  cities  or  populous  towns  for  their  principal  estab- 
lishments. Episcopal  cities  like  Poitiers,  Aries,  or  Paris, 
were  not  the  places  which  they  preferred,  nor  in  which  they 
abounded  most.  They  were  almost  always  to  be  found  there, 
thanks  to  the  zeal  of  the  bishops  who  sought  and  drew  them 
to  their  neighbourhood.  But  their  own  proper  impulse,  their 
natural  instinct,  I  know  not  what  current  of  ideas  always 
swaying  them,  led  them  far  from  towns,  and  even  from  the 
fertile  and  inhabited  rural  districts,  towards  the  forests  and 
deserts  which  then  covered  the  greater  part  of  the  soil  of 
our  country. 

They  took  special  delight  in  such  situations,  where  we 
behold  them  in  close  conflict  with  nature  with  all  her  ob- 
stacles and  dangers  ;  and  where  we  find  all  that  exuberant 
vigour  and  life  which  everywhere  distinguishes  the  spring- 
time of  monastic  institutions,  and  which  for  two  centuries 
renewed  a  kind  of  Thebaid  in  the  forests  of  Gaul. 

However,  between  that  sombre  and  wild  nature  of  Europe, 
transferred  from  the  oppressing  grasp  of  Rome  to  that  of 
the  Barbarians,  and  the  unwearied  activity  of  the  solitaries 
and  religious  communities,  there  was  less  a  laborious  struggle 
than  an  intimate  and  instinctive  alliance,  the  warm  and  poetic 
reflection  of  which  animates  many  a  page  of  the  monastic 
annals.      Nothing  can  be  more  attractive  than  this  moral 


1 86  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

and  material  sympathy  between  monastic  life  and  the  life 
of  nature.  To  him  who  would  devote  sufficient  leisure  and 
attention  to  it,  there  is  here  a  delightful  field  of  study  which 
might  fill  a  whole  life.  We  may  be  pardoned  for  lingering 
a  moment  on  this  fascinating  subject,  confining  ourselves, 
however,  to  so  much  only  as  concerns  the  monks  of  Gaul 
in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries. 

When  the  disciples  of  St.  Benedict  and  St.  Columba  came 
to  settle  in  Gaul,  most  of  its  provinces  bore  an  aspect  sadly 
similar.  Roman  tyranny  and  taxation  in  the  first  place, 
and  then  the  ravages  of  the  Barbarian  invasions,  had  changed 
entire  countries  into  desert  and  solitary  places.  That  pagus 
which,  in  the  time  of  Caesar,  had  furnished  thousands  of 
soldiers  against  the  common  enemy,  now  showed  only  some 
few  inhabitants  scattered  over  a  country  allowed  to  run 
waste,  where  a  spontaneous  and  savage  vegetation  disputed 
all  attempts  at  culture,  and  gradually  transformed  the  land 
into  forests.  These  new  forests  extended  by  degrees  to  the 
immense  clumps  of  dark  and  impenetrable  wood,  which  had 
always  covered  an  important  part  of  the  soil  of  Gaul.^  One 
example,  among  a  thousand,  will  prove  the  advance  of  deso- 
lation. Upon  the  right  bank  of  the  Loire,  five  leagues  below 
Orleans,  in  that  district  which  is  now  the  garden  of  France, 
the  Gallo-Roman  castrum  of  Magdunum,  which  occupied  the 
site  of  the  existing  town  of  Meung,  had  completely  disap- 
peared under  the  woods,  when  the  monk  Liephard  directed 
his  steps  there,  accompanied  by  a  single  disciple,  in  the 
sixth  century ;  in  place  of  the  numerous  inhabitants  of 
former  times,  there  stood  only  trees,  the  interlaced  branches 
and  trunks  of  which  formed  a  sort  of  impenetrable  barrier.^ 

^  This  question  has  been  exquisitely  treated  by  M.  Alfred  Maury,  in  his 
great  work  entitled  Les  Forits  de  la  France  dans  I'Antiquite  et  au  Moyen  Age, 
inserted  in  vol.  iv.  of  the  memoirs  presented  to  the  Academy  for  Inscrip- 
tions and  Belles-Lettres.  I  owe  to  him  several  of  the  details  and  quota- 
tions which  follow. 

2  "  Est  autem  mons  in  Aurelianensi  pago  ...  in  quo  ab  antiquis  cas- 
trum  fuerat   ^dificatum,   quod  crudeli   Wandalorum   vastatione  ad  solum 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  1 87 

And  thus  also  Columba  found  nothing  but  idols  abandoned 
in  the  midst  of  the  wood,  upon  that  site  of  Luxeuil  which 
had  formerly  been  occupied  by  the  temples  and  the  baths 
of  the  Romans.^ 

These  famous  Druidical  forests,  in  which  the  sacrifices  of 
the  ancient  Gauls  were  celebrated,  and  which  were  conse- 
crated by  the  worship  of  old  trees,  so  universally  practised 
by  all  pagan  antiquity  from  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  to 
those  of  the  Tiber  ;  these  eternal  shades,  which  inspired  the 
Romans  with  superstitious  terror,  had  not  only  preserved, 
but  even  extended,  their  formidable  empire.  The  fidelity 
of  the  picture  drawn  by  the  singer  of  Pharsalia  was  more 
than  ever  apparent  after  six  centuries  had  passed  : — 

"  Lucus  erat  longo  nunquam  violatus  ab  sevo, 
Obscurum  cingens  coimexis  aera  ramis, 
Et  gelidas  alte  subinotis  solibus  umVjras. 
Hunc  non  ruricolae  Panes,  nemorumque  potentes 
Silvani,  Nymphteque  tenent,  sed  barbara  ritu 
Sacra  Deum,  structge  diris  altaiibus  arse  .  .  . 
Arboribus  suus  horror  inest."  ^ 

Where  there  had  not  been  sufficient  time  to  produce 
these  immense  forest-trees  whose  tops  seem  to  reach  the 
clouds,^  or  these  woodland  giants  which  testified  to  the 
antiquity  of  primitive  forests,  cultivation  and  population  had 

usque  dirutum  est.  Nemine  autem  remanente  habitatore,  nemorihus  hive 
inde  succrescentibus,  locus  idem  qui  Claris  hominum  conventibus  quondam 
replebatur,  in  densissimam,  redactus  est  solitudinem.  Cujus  abtrusa 
latibula  venerabilis  Liephardus  petiit. "— Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  145. 
Compare  the  following  passage  in  the  life  of  St.  Laumer  :  "  Secessit  in 
locum  quern  olim  priscorum  habitatorum  manus  extruxerat,  sed  jam  vas- 
titas  succrescentium  frondium  et  totum  ohduxeiat."— Ibid.,  p.  325. 

1  "  Ibi  imaginum  lapidearum  densitas  vicina  saltus  densabat." — Jonas, 
Vit.  S.  Columbnni. 

2  LUCAN.,  PharsaL,  lib.  iii.  399. 

^  "  Erat  silva  longum  nunquam  violata  per  cEvum,  cujus  arborum  suramitas 
pene  nubes  pulsabat."— Fi<.  S.  Sequani,  c.  7.  The  words  underlined  show 
that  the  monastic  writer  of  the  seventh  century  knew  his  Lucan  by  heart. 


I  88  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

not  the  less  disappeared  before  a  lower  growth  of  wood. 
Certainly  magnificent  pines,  such  as  those  that  crown  the 
heights  of  the  Vosges  and  the  sides  of  the  Alps,  or  oaks,  the 
fallen  trunks  of  which  could  scarcely  be  moved  by  forty 
men,  like  that  which  the  abbot  Launomar  cut  down  in  the 
vast  forest  of  Perche,  were  not  to  be  seen  everywhere ;  ^ 
but  the  fertile  soil  was  everywhere  usurped  by  copsewood, 
where  the  maple,  the  birch,  the  aspen,  and  the  witch- 
elm  prepared  the  ground  for  a  more  imposing  growth  of 
trees,  and,  still  worse,  by  thickets  of  thorn  and  brambles 
of  formidable  extent  and  depth,  which  arrested  the  steps 
and  tortured  the  limbs  of  the  unfortunates  who  ventured 
there.^  These  intermediate  regions  between  the  great 
forests  and  the  fields,  between  the  mountains  and  the  culti- 
vated plains,  were  with  too  much  justice  entitled  deserts, 
because  the  population  had  abandoned  them  till  the  monks 
brought  back  fertility  and  life.  In  the  northern  part  of 
the  country,  occupied  by  the  Burgundians,  on  the  north  of 
the  Rhone  alone,  six  great  deserts  existed  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century, — the  desert  of  Reome,  between  Tonnerre  and 
Montbard  ;  the  desert  of  Morvan  ;  the  desert  of  Jura  ;  the 
desert  of  the  Vosges,  where  Luxeuil  and  Lure  were  about 
to  have  birth  ;  the  desert  of  Switzerland,  between  Bienne 
and  Lucerne  ;  and  the  desert  of  Gruyere,  between  the  Savine 
and  the  Aar.^  Indeed,  the  whole  extent  of  Switzerland  and 
Savoy  was  little  else  than  a  vast  forest,  the  name  of  which 
alone  remains,   applied  in   French   to  the  canton  of  Vaud 

1  "Vasta  tractus  PerticsB  solitudines.  .  .  .  Annosam  quercum.  .  .  . 
Immensse  molis.  .  .  .  Tanti  ponderis  utvix  a  quadraginta  virisportaretur." 
—Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  pp.  318,  324. 

2  SpincB  et  vepres :  In  almost  every  life  of  the  holy  founders  of  monas- 
teries we  find  mention  of  these  vegetable  enemies.  Thence  also  the  names 
of  several  abbeys,  Roncereium,  the  Konceray,  at  Angers ;  Spinetum,  after- 
wards Boheries ;  Spinosus  locus,  Espinlieu  ;  Spinalium,  Epinal,  and  other 
local  names  which  are  to  be  found  in  almost  all  our  provinces  :  L'Epine, 
Jj  Espinay,  La  Ronciere,  La  Roncier,  La  Ronceraye. 

^  See  the  excellent  map  of  the  first  kingdom  of  Burgundy,  by  Baron 
Roget  de  Belloguet,  ap.  Memoires  de  VAcad,  de  Dijon,  1847-48,  p.  313. 


THE    FIRST   MEROVINGIANS  1 89 

{Pagus  Waldensis),  and  in  German  to  the  four  primitive 
cantons  of  Lucerne,  Schwitz,  Uri,  and  Unterwald  {Die  Wald- 
stdtten),  where  a  border  of  impenetrable  wood  surrounded 
the  beautiful  lake  which  unites  them/  Advancing  towards 
the  north,  the  wooded  regions  became  more  and  more  pro- 
found and  extensive.  Even  in  the  provinces  least  depopu- 
lated and  best  cultivated,  through  the  most  favourable  soils 
and  climates,  long  wooded  lines  extended  from  north  to 
south,  and  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun,  connecting 
the  great  masses  of  forests  with  each  other,  surrounding  and 
enveloping  Gaul  as  in  a  vast  network  of  shade  and  silence. 

We  must  then  imagine  Gaul  and  all  the  neighbouring 
countries,  the  whole  extent  of  France,  Switzerland,  Belgium, 
and  both  banks  of  the  Ehine — that  is  to  say,  the  richest 
and  most  populous  countries  of  modern  Europe — covered 
with  forests  such  as  are  scarcely  to  be  seen  in  America,  and 
of  which  there  does  not  remain  the  slightest  trace  in  the 
ancient  world.  We  must  figure  to  ourselves  these  masses 
of  sombre  and  impenetrable  wood,  covering  hills  and  valleys, 
the  high  table-land  as  well  as  the  marshy  bottoms  ;  descend- 
ing to  the  banks  of  the  great  rivers,  and  even  to  the  sea  ; 
broken  here  and  there  by  water-courses  which  laboriously 
forced  a  way  for  themselves  across  the  roots  and  fallen  trees  ; 
perpetually  divided  by  bogs  and  marshes,  which  swallowed 
up  the  animals  or  men  who  were  so  ill-advised  as  to  risk 
themselves  there  ;  and  inhabited  by  innumerable  wild  beasts, 
whose  ferocity  had  scarcely  been  accustomed  to  fly  before 
man,  and  of  which  many  different  species  have  since  almost 
completely  disappeared  from  our  country. 

To  plunge  into  these  terrible  forests,  to  encounter  these 
monstrous  animals,  the  tradition  of  which  remains  every- 
where, and  whose  bones  are  still  sometimes  exhumed,  re- 
quired a  courage  of  which  nothing  in  the  existing  world  can 
give  us  an  idea.      In  all  that  now  remains  to  be  conquered 

1  Wald  in  German  means  at  the  same  time  forest  and  mountain ;  it  is  the 
saltus  of  the  Latins.     See  Mauey,  op.  cit. 


190  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

of  Anierican  forests  and  deserts,  the  modern  adventurer 
penetrates  armed  with  all  the  inventions  of  industry  and 
mechanical  art,  provided  with  all  the  resources  of  modern 
life,  sustained  by  the  certainty  of  success,  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  progress,  and  urged  forward  by  the  immense  pressure 
of  civilisation  which  follows  and  sustains  him.  But  at  that 
time  no  such  help  came  to  the  monk,  who  attacked  these 
gloomy  woods  without  arms,  without  sufficient  implements, 
and  otten  without  a  single  companion.  He  came  out  of  a 
desolated,  decrepit,  and  powerless  old  world,  to  plunge  into 
the  unknown.  But  he  bore  with  him  a  strength  which 
nothing  has  ever  surpassed  or  equalled,  the  strength  con- 
ferred by  faith  in  a  living  God,  the  protector  and  rewarder 
of  innocence,  by  contempt  of  all  material  joy,  and  by  an  ex- 
clusive devotion  to  the  spiritual  and  future  life.  He  thus 
advanced,  undaunted  and  serene ;  and,  often  without  think- 
ing what  he  did,  opened  a  road  to  all  the  benefits  of  agri- 
culture, labour,  and  Christian  civilisation. 

See,  then,  these  men  of  prayer  and  penitence,  who  were 
at  the  same  time  the  bold  pioneers  of  Christian  civilisation 
and  the  modern  world ;  behold  them  taming  that  world  of 
wild  and  savage  nature  in  a  thousand  different  places.  They 
plunged  into  the  darkness  carrying  light  with  them,  a  light 
which  was  never  more  to  be  extinguished ;  and  this  light, 
advancing  step  by  step,  lighted  everywhere  those  home-fires 
which  were  so  many  beacons  upon  the  way  to  heaven,— 
"  from  glory  to  glory,"  ^ — and  which  were  to  be  centres  of 
life  and  blessing  for  the  people  whom  they  instructed  and 
edified  :   "  In  thy  light  shall  we  see  light."  ^ 

They  entered  there,  sometimes  axe  in  hand,  at  the  head 
of  a  troop  of  believers  scarcely  converted,  or  of  pagans  sur- 
prised and  indignant,  to  cut  down  the  sacred  trees,  and  thus 
root  out  the  popular  superstition.  But  still  more  frequently 
they  reached  these  solitudes  with  one  or  two  disciples  at  the 
most,  seeking  some  distant  and  solitary  retreat,  out  of  the 

1  2  Cor.  iii.  i8.  ^  Ps.  xxxvi.  9. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  I9I 

way  of  men,  where  they  might  be  allowed  to  devote  them- 
selves entirely  to  God. 

No  obstacle  nor  danger  arrested  them.  The  more  awful 
the  profound  darkness  of  the  forest,  the  more  were  they 
attracted  to  it.^  When  the  only  paths  were  so  tortuous, 
narrow,  and  bristling  with  thorns,  that  it  was  imposssible  to 
move  without  tearing  their  clothes,  and  they  could  scarcely 
plant  one  foot  after  another  in  the  same  line,  they  ventured 
on  without  hesitation.  If  they  had  to  creep  under  the  inter- 
laced branches  to  discover  some  narrow  and  gloomy  cavern 
obstructed  by  stones  and  briers,  they  were  ready  to  do  it. 
It  was  when  approaching,  on  his  knees,  such  a  retreat,  which 
the  beasts  of  the  forests  themselves  feared  to  enter,  that  the 
Burgundian  priest  Sequanus  addressed  this  prayer  to  God : 
"Lord,  who  hast  made  heaven  and  earth,  who  hearest  the 
prayers  of  him  who  comes  to  Tbee,  from  whom  everything 
good  proceeds,  and  without  whom  all  the  efforts  of  human 
weakness  are  vain,  if  Thou  ordainest  me  to  establish  myself 
in  this  solitude,  make  it  known  to  me,  and  lead  to  a  good 
issue  the  beginning  which  Thou  hast  already  granted  to  my 
devotion."  Then,  feeling  himself  inspired  and  consoled  by 
his  prayer,  he  commenced  at  that  very  spot  the  cell  in  which 
originated  the  abbey  and  existing  town  of  St.  Seine." 

Where  a  natural  cavern  was  wanting,  they  constructed  some 
shelter,  a  hut  of  branches  or  reeds  ;^  and  if  there  were  several, 

^  "Inter  opaca  quaeque  memorum  et  lustra  abditissima  ferarum." — Vita 
S.  Karileji,  c.  9. 

2  "Callis  quidam  artuosus  .  .  .  tatum  angustus,  atque  sentuosus,  ut 
.  .  .  vix  pedem  pes  sequeretur,  impediente  densitate  ramorum  .  .  .  vesti- 
mentorum  discerptione.  .  .  .  Tunc  se  curvantes  solo  tenus.  .  .  .  Ita  im- 
plicitae  inter  se  ramorum  frondes  .  .  .  ut  ipsius  etiam  ferae  formidarent 
accessum.  .  .  .  Ad  squalidam  silvam.  .  .  .  Extemplo  parvas  cellute  in  quo 
loco  genua  ad  orationem  fixerat  fundamenta  molitus  est." — Vit.  S.  Sequani, 
c.  7,  8,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  1. 

3  "  Tugurio  frondibus  contexto." — Vita  S.  Launom,  c.  7.  "  Cellulam  sibi 
virgis  contexens." — Vita  S.  Lifardi,  c.  3.  "  De  virgultis  et  frondibus  con- 
struxere  tugurium.  Quod  claustro  parvulo  ejusdem  materiae  circumcin- 
gentes."— Ftto  S.  Ebridfi,  c.  8. 


192  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

an  oratory  with  a  little  cloister.  Sometimes  they  hollowed 
out  a  cell  in  the  rock,  where  the  bed,  the  seat,  and  the  table 
were  all  cut  out  of  the  living  stone.  Sometimes  (like  St. 
Calais  in  a  desert  of  Maine)  meeting  in  the  depth  of  the 
wood  the  remains  of  some  ancient  forsaken  buildings,  they 
transformed  them  into  cells  and  chapels,  by  means  of  branches 
woven  between  the  fragments  of  ruined  wall.^ 

When  the  course  of  the  liturgy  led  them  to  that  magnifi- 
cent enumeration  of  the  victories  of  patriarchal  faith,  made 
by  St.  Paul  in  his  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  which  he  repre- 
sents Abraham  waiting  with  confidence  in  the  tents  of  exile 
for  the  eternal  city,  whose  maker  and  builder  was  God,^  they 
might  have  applied  to  themselves  that  sacred  text,  "  Dwelling 
in  tabernacles."  They  might  well  say  that  their  dwelling- 
places  were  the  tabernacles,  that  is  to  say,  the  tents,  the  cells 
of  exile.  At  night,  lying  upon  their  stone  pallets,  and  during 
the  day  protected  against  every  interruption  by  the  thick 
foliage  and  inaccessible  passes,  they  gave  themselves  up  to 
the  delights  of  prayer  and  contemplation,  to  visions  of  a  future 
life  in  heaven. 

Sometimes,  also,  the  future  destiny  of  those  great  works, 
of  which,  unawares,  they  sowed  the  seed,  was  instinctively 
revealed  to  their  thoughts.  St.  Imier  heard  the  bells  of  the 
monastery  which  was  one  day  to  replace  his  hermitage,  echo- 
ing through  the  night.  "  Dear  brother,"  he  said  to  his  only 
companion,  "  dost  thou  hear  that  distant  bell  that  has  already 
waked  me  three  times?  "  "  No,"  said  the  servant.  But  Imier 
rose,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  guided  by  this  mysterious 
sound  across  the  high  plateau  and  narrow  gorges  of  the  valley 
of  Doubs,  as  far  as  the  gushing  fountain,  where  he  established 

^  "  In  altitudine  eremi.  .  .  .  Reperit  .  .  .  parietes  vetusti  Eedificii  senio 
labentes,  dignitatem  tamen  pristinam  ipsius  operis  vestigiis  protestantes. 
.  .  .  Cellulam  intra  parietinas  supradicti  sedificii  vimine  lento  contexit. " — 
Vita  S.  Karilcfi,  c.  ii. 

2  "  Dwelling  in  tabernacles  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  heirs  with  him  of 
the  same  promise  :  for  he  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God." — Heb.  xi.  9,  10. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  193 

himself,  and  which  has  retained  his  name  to  the  present  time.-^ 
Elsewhere  in  that  Limousin,  which  was  so  celebrated  for  the 
number  and  austerity  of  its  solitaries,  Junian,  the  son  of  a 
companion  of  Clovis,  abandoned  everything  at  the  age  of 
fifteen  to  take  shelter  in  an  unknown  cell  on  the  banks  of 
the  Vienne  ;  he  left  it  only  to  pray  in  the  depths  of  the  wood 
in  the  shade  of  a  great  hawthorn-tree.  Under  this  blossom 
tree  they  buried  him  after  forty  years  of  that  holy  and  wild 
life,  and  the  hawthorn  disappeared  only  to  make  room  for  a 
monastery,  which  was  the  origin  of  the  existing  town  of  St. 
Junian.^ 

The  principal  aim  of  all  these  monks  was  not  to  form  com- 
munities in  the  forests.  They  sought  only  solitude  there ; 
they  would  rather  have  lived  as  anchorites  than  as  cenobites. 
Some,  and  a  great  number,  after  having  founded  or  lived  in 
monasteries,  according  to  the  rule  of  the  life  in  common, 
aspired  to  a  more  perfect  existence,  and  to  end  their  career 
as  St.  Benedict  had  begun  his,  in  some  cavern  unknown  to 
men.  St.  Benedict  himself  had  inscribed  at  the  head  of  his 
Rule  that,  to  be  a  good  anchorite,  it  was  necessary  first  to 
have  learned  how  to  strive  against  the  devil  under  the 
common  rule  and  with  the  help  of  the  brethren  :  this  was, 
according  to  him,  an  apprenticeship  necessary  before  engag- 
ing in  what  he  calls  single  combat  against  the  temptations 
of  the  flesh  and  the  thoughts.^     Others  still  more  numerous 

^  "  Per  novem  annos  breve  illud  quod  quievit  super  rupes  jacuit.  .  .  . 
Culmen  montis  ascendit.  .  .  .  Per  sonitum  campanfe.  .  .  .  Audisne,  mi 
frater,  signum  quod  ego  audio  ?  Nequaquam." — Breviar.  MS.  de  la  Bihl.  de 
Berne,  ap.  Teouillat,  Monuments  de  I'Evechi  de  Bale,  i.  37.  The  town  of 
St.  Imier  is  at  the  present  time  one  of  the  most  flourishing  centres  of  watch- 
making in  the  Bernois  Jura. 

-  "  In  quodam  ipsius  silvae  cacumine  .  .  .  subter  quamdam  arborem  qus 
spina  dicitur,  et  in  vulgari  nostro  aubespi  nuncupatur." — Maleu,  Chron. 
Comodoliacense,  p.  14,  ed.  Arbellot,  1848.  Compare  Greg.  Tue.,  Be  Glor. 
Confess.,  c.  103.  We  have  already  distinguished  this  St.  Junian  from 
another  saint  of  the  same  name,  abbot  of  Maire  in  Poitou,  and  friend  of 
Radegund.     See  p.  179. 

^  "  Qui  non  conversionis  fervore  novitio,  sed  monasterii  probatione  diu- 
turna,  didicerunt  contra  diabolum,  multorum  solatio  jam  docti,  pugnare  ; 
VOL.  II.  N 


194  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

yielded  to  the  overpowering  attraction  which  led  them  to 
the  depths  of  the  forests,  not  only  to  escape  from  the  dis- 
cussions, violences,  and  cruel  wars,  of  which  every  Christian 
of  that  period  was  the  witness  and  too  often  the  victim,  but 
to  flee  from  contact  with  other  men,  and  to  enjoy  silence, 
peace,  and  freedom. 

This,  however,  was  a  vain  hope.  Their  solitude  soon 
inspired  too  much  envy,  and  their  austerity  too  much  admi- 
ration, to  be  long  respected.  Happy  were  they  who  heard 
only  the  cries  of  the  wild  beasts  echoing  round  their  cells  :  — 

"  Nunc  exoriri  gemitus  irseque  leoinim 
Vincla  recusantum,  et  sera  sub  nocte  rudentum 
Ssevire,  ac  formse  magnorum  ululare  luporum." 

Often,  in  fact,  when  they  celebrated  the  nocturnal  service 
in  their  chapels,  thatched  with  green  leaves  or  rushes,  the 
howls  of  the  wolves  accompanied  their  voices,  and  served 
as  a  response  to  the  psalmody  of  their  matins.^  But  they 
feared  much  more  the  step  and  voice  of  men.  Sometimes 
in  the  middle  of  the  night,  the  voluntary  exile,  who  has  hid 
himself  here  in  the  hope  of  remaining  for  ever  forgotten  or 
unknown,  hears  some  one  knock  at  the  door  of  his  hut.  It 
is  at  first  only  a  reverential  and  timid  tap ;  he  is  silent, 
thinking  it  a  temptation  of  the  devil.  It  continues :  he 
opens  and  asks,  "  What  would  you  with  me  ?  Why  do  you 
pursue  me  into  my  solitary  dwelling  ?  Who  are  you  ?  "  He 
is  answered,  "  A  poor  sinner,  or  a  young  Christian,  or  an 
old  priest  weary  of  the  world."  ^   "  But  what  would  you  with 

et  bene  instructi  fraterna  ex  acie  ad  singularem  pugnam  eremi,  securi  jam 
sine  consolatione  alterius,  solo  manu  vel  brachio  contra  vitia  carnis  vel 
cogitationum,  Deo  auxiliante,  sufficiunte  pugnare." — Reg.,  c.  i. 

1  "  In  primis  ibidem  construxit  oratorium  de  virgultis.  .  .  .  Frequenter 
contigit,  sicut  ipse  nobis  referre  solebat,  quod  nocturnis  temporibus  dum 
in  capella  virgea  matutinos  cantabat,  lupus  e  contra  de  foris  stabat,  et 
quasi  psallenti  murmurando  respondebat." — Order.  Vital.,  lib.  iii.  p. 
132,  ed.  Leprevost. 

*  "Fores  ipsius  cellulse  lento  et  suavi  ictu  reverenter  pulsare  ccepit 
.  .  .  Putans  pulsationem  hujusmodi  ex  illusione  djemoniaca  processisse." 
— Chron.  Commod.,  lib.  c. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  195 

me  ?  "  "  Be  saved  like  you,  and  with  you  :  learn  from  you 
the  way  of  peace  and  of  the  kingdom  of  God."  This  un- 
expected and  undesired  guest  must  be  admitted.  The  next 
morning,  or  the  next  again,  comes  another ;  and  they  are 
followed  by  others  still.  The  anchorites  saw  themselves 
thus  changed  into  cenobites,  and  monastic  life  established 
itself  involuntarily  and  unexpectedly  amid  the  most  distant 
forest. 

Besides,  it  was  vain  to  flee  from  solitude  to  solitude ; 
they  were  pursued,  seized  upon,  surrounded,  and  importuned 
incessantly,  not  only  by  disciples  ambitious  of  living,  like 
them,  in  silence  and  prayer,  but  by  the  surrounding  popula- 
tions themselves.  Keassured  and  trustful,  growing  familiar 
in  their  turn  with  the  gloomy  arches,  where  these  men  of 
peace  and  blessing,  of  labour  and  charity,  had  gone  before 
them,  they  followed  in  their  track  ;  and  when  they  had 
discovered  the  hermits,  kept  up  a  continued  assault,  some 
bringing  offerings,  others  asking  alms,  prayers,  or  advice,  all 
seeking  the  cure  of  all  the  troubles  both  of  soul  and  body. 
The  rich  came  like  the  poor,  whenever  they  were  afflicted  by 
the  hand  of  God  or  man.  The  widows  and  orphans,  the 
lame  and  blind,  the  paralytic  and  epileptic,  the  lepers,  and, 
above  all,  the  possessed,  appeared  in  a  crowd,  in  quest  of  a 
virtue  and  knowledge  equally  supernatural  to  their  eyes. 

The  solitaries  withdrew  with  modesty  from  the  exercise 
of  the  supernatural  power  attributed  to  them.  When  the 
abbot  Launomar,  who  being  at  first  a  shepherd,  had  become 
a  student,  then  the  cellarer  of  a  monastery  of  Chartres,  and 
lastly,  an  anchorite  in  the  great  desert  of  Perche,  which 
then  attracted  many  lovers  of  solitude,-^  was  discovered,  and 
approached  by  a  crowd  of  petitioners,  among  whom  was  a 
distressed  father  who  brought  his  crippled  son  to  be  cured 

1  "  Inter  opaca  nemorum.  .  .  .  Vasta  tectus  Perticse  solitudine." — Vit. 
S.  Launomari,  c.  5  et  6.  "  Vastas  expetunt  Pertesi  saltus  solitudines." — 
Vit.  S.  Karilefi,  c.  9.  Compare  Vit.  S.  Leobini,  c.  6.  "Grandem  ab  homine 
peccatore  poscis  rem  :  tamem  nostras  sumens  eulogias  reduc  ad  propria 
filium  tuum  .  .  .  quibus  acceptis  sanum  reduxit  filium." 


196  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

— "  You  ask  too  mucli,"  said  he,  "  of  a  sinful  man."  The 
same  sentiment  animated  the  noble  Maglorius,  one  of  the 
Breton  missionaries,  and  the  successor  of  Samson  at  Dol. 
After  having  abdicated  his  bishopric  to  live  as  a  hermit  in 
the  isle  of  Jersey,  which  Childebert,  as  has  been  already 
seen,  bestowed  upon  a  Breton  monastery,  the  lord  of  a 
neighbouring  isle,  rich  in  a  hundred  ploughs,  as  says  the 
legend,  and  possessing  innumerable  fishing-boats,  came  to 
ask  this  saint  to  restore  her  speech  to  his  only  daughter, 
who,  despite  her  rich  inheritance  and  rare  beauty,  could  not 
find  a  husband  because  she  was  dumb.  "  My  son,"  answered 
Maglorius,  "  torment  me  not :  that  which  you  ask  is  beyond 
the  power  of  our  weakness.  When  I  am  sick,  I  know  not 
whether  I  am  to  die  or  be  cured.  How,  then,  having  no 
power  over  my  own  life,  should  I  be  able  to  take  away  any 
of  the  other  calamities  permitted  by  God  ?  Return  to  your 
house,  and  offer  abundant  alms  to  God,  that  you  may  obtain 
from  Him  the  cure  of  your  daughter."  He  ended,  however, 
by  yielding  to  the  entreaties  of  the  father,  who  gave  him 
a  third  part  of  all  his  possessions,  and  by  obtaining  this 
miracle  from  God.^ 

The  same  Maglorius,  in  leaving  his  bishopric  for  solitude, 
found  himself  pursued  by  a  crowd  so  numerous  and  eager 
for  instruction  and  consolation,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
lavish  of  gifts  and  alms,  that  he  was  in  despair.  He  told 
his  grief  with  his  face  bathed  in  tears,  to  his  successor  in 
the  see  of  Dol.  "  No,"  said  he,  "  I  can  no  longer  remain 
within  reach  of  all  these  people  :  I  will  fly  and  seek  some 
inaccessible  place,  where  men  have  never  penetrated,  nor 
can  penetrate,  where  no  human  steps  can  follow  me."      The 

^  "  Hausit  speciem  carnis  ab  arce  alti  sanguinis.  ...  Ad  prsedicandum 
populo  ejusdem  lingufe.  .  .  .  Qui  licet  terram,  ut  aiunt,  centum  pene 
verteret  aratris.  .  .  .  Divitem  censum  non  sine  magno  dolore  alieno  serva- 
bat  heeredi.  .  .  .  Huic  unica  filia  jam  nubilis  et  nimia  pulchritudine.  .  .  . 
Sed  quia  officio  linguae  .  .  .  destituta  ...  a  nullo  sub  nomine  dotis  ex- 
petebatur.  .  .  .  Fill,  noli  mihi  molestus  esse,  nam  hoc  quod  requiris  non 
est  nostrze  fragilitatis." — Vita  S.  Maglorii,  c.  i,  3,  29. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  197 

bishop  listened  in  silence,  and  permitted  him  to  pour  out 
all  his  grief  for  some  hours ;  then  he  mildly  reproved  him, 
and  showed  him  that  he  could  not  deny  to  the  poor  of  Christ 
the  true  seed  of  spiritual  life,  nor  refuse  to  take  upon  him- 
self the  sweet  burden  of  the  people's  sorrows,  for  which  God 
would  render  him  a  hundred-fold.  Maglorius  listened  and 
obeyed  him :  and  shortly,  in  place  of  the  solitary  cell  he  had 
dreamt  of,  found  himself  at  the  head  of  a  community  of 
sixty-two  monks.^ 

Among  the  leudes  and  other  possessors  of  the  soil,  there 
were  also  many  to  whom  gratitude  for  health  restored,  or 
admiration  of  the  virtues  displayed  by  the  monks,  suggested 
the  thought  of  associating  themselves  with  their  merits  and 
courage  by  territorial  grants,  and  especially  by  the  conces- 
sion of  these  forests  of  which  they  were  nominally  the  lords 
and  proprietors,  and  which  they  willingly  gave  up  in  favour 
of  the  servants  of  God,  who  had  colonised  them.  Such, 
among  a  thousand  others,  was  Ragnosvinthe,  a  man  of 
illustrious  family,  and  master  of  vast  territorial  possessions 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Chartres  ;  being  apprised  that  the 
abbot  Launomar  had  come  to  establish  himself  in  a  corner 
of  his  lands,  once  inhabited,  but  since  swallowed  up  in  the 
forest,  the  leude,  inspired  by  the  love  of  Him  whose  image 
he  venerated  in  the  man  of  God  who  had  become  his  guest, 
transferred  to  him  the  perpetual  possession  of  a  wooded 
district,  the  limits  of  which  were  carefully  marked  out.^ 

1  "  Irrigata  facie  lacrymis,  qualia  et  quanta  a  multitudine  vulgi  perpes- 
sus  est  retulit.  .  .  .  Pro  certo  noveris  me  hinc  impromptu  egressurum, 
et  ad  locum  ubi  nulla  existunt  hominis  vestigia.  .  .  .  Hinc  recedere  et 
abrupta  expetere.  .  .  .  Spiritualis  alimonise  pauperibus  Christii  qua  illis 
vivere  est  triticum.  .  .  .  Horum  populorum  molestias  circa  te  exagitatas 
perspicere  debes  onus  leve." — Vita  S.  Maglorii,  c.  lo  et  ii. 

"  "  Vir  illustris,  satis  locuples  et  latissimorum  fundorum  possessor.  .  .  . 
Tactus  amoris  ejus  igne,  quern  in  Dei  homine  artius  venerans  attendebat, 
tradidit  ei  locum  in  quem  vir  sanctus  ingressus  fuerat  ...  et  de  jure  sue 
in  ejus  dominationem  perpetuo  transfudit  ipsi  et  posteris  ejus  .  .  .  quem 
etiam  propriis  finibus  optime  undique  determiuavit." — Vita  S,  Launom., 
ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  324. 


198  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

The  monks  did  not  refuse  these  gifts  when  they  came 
from  a  legitimate  and  natural  source.  But  we  must  not 
believe  that  they  were  ready  to  receive  all  that  came  to 
them  from  every  hand  ;  for  the  same  Launomar,  to  whom 
another  noble,  feeling  himself  sick  to  death,  had  sent  forty 
sols  of  gold  as  the  price  of  the  prayers  he  asked,  sent  them 
back  at  once,  suspecting  that  this  sum  was  the  produce  of 
the  rapine  which  the  dying  man  had  practised.  In  vain 
the  bearer  of  this  gift  followed  him  even  into  his  oratory, 
under  pretence  of  praying  with  him,  and  placed  the  pieces 
of  gold  on  the  altar,  taking  care  to  show  them,  and  weigh 
one  by  one  to  make  their  value  apparent.  "  No,"  said  the 
abbot,  "  take  back  your  money,  and  return  to  your  master ; 
say  to  him  from  me,  that  this  money  is  ill-gotten,  that  it 
cannot  either  prolong  his  life  or  change  the  sentence  of 
God  against  his  sins.  God  will  not  have  sacrifices  pro- 
duced by  rapine.  Let  your  master  make  haste  to  restore 
what  he  has  taken  from  others,  for  he  shall  die  of  this 
disease.  As  for  us,  by  the  goodness  of  Christ,  we  are  rich 
enough,  and,  as  long  as  our  faith  stands  fast,  we  shall  want 
nothing."  ^ 

However,  in  spite  of  this  reserve,  men  were  not  wanting 
whom  these  generous  gifts  inspired  with  jealous  discontent. 
Even  in  Armorica,  where  devotion  towards  the  monks  seemed 
native  to  the  very  soil,  with  the  faith  of  which  these  monks 
were  the  first  apostles,  chiefs  of  the  highest  rank  yielded  to 
this  sentiment,  and  expressed  it  loudly.  The  Briton  Malo, 
who  had  devoted  the  numerous  gifts  which  he  received  to 
endow  a  monastery  of  seventy  monks  attached  to  his  epis- 

1  "Vir  nobilis  Ermoaldus  nomine.  .  .  .  Sed  devotus  miles  Domini 
accipere  recusabat.  .  .  .  Perge  cito,  flli.  ,  .  .  Pecunia  base  mortem 
divinamque  nequit  prohibere  sententiam,  eo  quod  illius  acquisitio  injuste 
facta  sit ;  pro  se  laboret,  quia  morietur.  .  .  .  Pecunia  ista  o  homo ! 
iniqua  est.  .  .  .  Qui  Deo  sacrificium  de  rapina  parat.  .  .  .  Nuntia 
domino  tuo,  ut  injuste  sublata  restituet.  .  .  .  Nos  Christo  propitio  bonis 
omnibus  abundamus,  et,  si  fide  non  infirmamur,  nihil  nobis  deerit." — 
Vit.  S.  Launom.,  pp.  320,  325, 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  199 

copal  church,  was  forced  to  leave  his  diocese  and  emigrate 
a  second  time,  before  the  outcries  of  those  who  denounced 
him  as  an  invader  who  intended  to  bewitch  the  whole  pro- 
vince, and  leave  no  inheritance  to  the  inhabitants  or  their 
descendants. 

Recruits,  or  importunate  followers  of  another  kind,  often 
came  to  trouble  their  solitude.  The  condition  of  Gaul  was 
but  too  well  adapted  to  encourage  the  formation  and  pro- 
longed existence  of  the  habits  of  brigandage,  which  have 
kept  their  ground  in  many  modern  countries  through  all 
the  progress  of  civilisation,  and  which  are  still  to  be  found 
in  our  own  day  in  Spain  and  Italy.  Some  contented  them- 
selves with  stealing  the  tools  of  the  solitary  who  had  no 
other  wealth,  or  depriving  him  of  the  single  cow  which  he 
had  taken  with  him  ;  but,  more  frequently,  they  aimed  even 
at  the  life  of  the  intruders.  The  forests  were  the  natural 
resort  of  these  bands  of  brigands,  who  lived  by  theft,  and 
who  did  not  recoil  from  murder  when  they  could  thus  rob 
their  victims  more  completely.  They  could  not  without 
rage  see  the  monks  disputing  the  possession  of  their  hitherto 
uncontested  domain,  penetrating  farther  than  they  them- 
selves could  do,  and  in  such  a  way  as  always  to  defeat  their 
greediness,  by  entangling  those  who  followed  them  in  be- 
wildering complications  of  the  way.^  And  they  were  always 
tempted  to  believe  that  these  strange  guests  went  either  to 
bury  or  to  seek  hidden  treasure.  The  abbot  Launomar, 
whose  legend  unites  so  many  incidents  of  the  forest-life  of 
the  monastic  founders,  found  himself  one  morning  surrounded 
by  a  troop  of  bandits,  who  had  spent  all  the  night  in  seeking 
for  him.  But  when  they  saw  him  appear  upon  the  threshold 
of  his  hut  of  branches,  they  were  afraid,  and  fell  at  his 
feet,  praying  his  pardon.  "  My  children,"  he  said,  "  what 
do  you  ask  of  me  ?     What  came  you  to  seek  here  ?  "     And 

^  "Bovem  a  prsesepio  solventes  abduxerunt.  .  .  .  Latrunculi  .  .  . 
nusquam  aditum  invenientes  quo  se  de  solitudine  invia  foras  extrahere 
possent." — Vita  S.  Launom.,  c.  20. 


200  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

when  they  had  confessed  their  murderous  intention,  he  said 
to  them,  "  God  have  pity  on  you !  Go  in  peace.  Give  up 
your  brigandage,  that  you  may  merit  the  mercy  of  God, 
As  for  me,  I  have  no  treasure  here  below.  Christ  is  my 
only  treasure."  ■^ 

The  monks  almost  always  thus  disarmed  the  brigands  by 
their  goodness,  gentleness,  and  venerable  aspect ;  they  led 
them  to  repentance,  and  often  even  to  monastic  life,  taking 
them  for  companions  and  disciples. 

Sequanus,  whose  tranquil  courage  and  fervent  piety  we 
have  already  narrated,  had  been  warned  that  the  borders  of 
the  impenetrable  forest  into  which  he  was  about  to  venture 
were  occupied  by  bands  of  assassins,  who  were  even  called 
anthropophagi.  "  No  matter,"  he  said  to  one  of  his  rela- 
tives, who  imagined  himself  the  owner  of  this  region,  and 
who  gave  him  this  information ;  "  show  me  only  the  road 
by  which  to  reach  it ;  for  if  my  desires  are  dictated  by  a 
divine  instinct,  all  the  ferocity  of  these  men  will  change 
into  the  mildness  of  the  dove."  And,  in  fact,  when  they 
understood  that  he  had  established  himself  near  their  caverns, 
and  when  they  had  seen  him,  the  wolves  became  lambs ; 
they  even  became  labourers  to  serve  and  aid  him  and  his, 
to  cut  down  the  neighbouring  trees,  to  dig  the  foundations 
and  build  the  walls  of  his  monastery.^ 

Whilst  this  occurred  near  the  sources  of  the  Seine,  similar 
events  were  taking  place  not  far  from  its  mouth.     Ebrulph, 

^  "Per  totam  noctem  .  .  .  errantes  ut  eum  interficerent.  .  .  .  Puta- 
bant  ilium  aliquam  pecuniam  in  deserto  servare.  Diluculo  autem  facto, 
vident  se  repente  in  conspectu  ejus  .  .  .  sub  parvo  tugurio.  .  .  .  Parce 
nobis,  vir  Dei,  parce.  .  .  .  Filioli,  ut  quid  parci  vobis  petitis  ?  Cessite  a 
latrociniis.  .  .  .  Pecunia  vero  nostra  Christus  est."— Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t. 
i.  pp.  318,  322. 

2  "Est  mihi  locus  hereditario,  ni  fallor,  jure  perdebitus,  sed  loci  illius 
finitimi,  bestiarum  more,  carnibus  humanis  ac  cruoribus  depascuntur.  .  .  . 
Mihi  locum  monstra.  .  .  .  Erat  quippe  spelunca  latronum.  ...  Ex  lupis 
quasi  oves  facti  sunt.  .  .  .  Instabant  structores  operis  ii  qui  advenerant 
finitimi,  pars  fundaminis  consolidare  juncturas  .  .  .  pars  umbrosse  silvae 
nemora  detruncare." — Vit.  S.  Sequani,  c.  7,  8. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  20I 

a  noble  Neustrian  lord,  had  given  up  conjugal  life  and  the 
favour  of  kings  to  betake  himself  to  the  wild  solitudes  of 
the  forest  of  Ouche,  in  the  Pagus  Oximensis,^  which  was  the 
hiding-place  of  numerous  brigands.  One  of  these  met  him : 
"  Oh,  monk  !  "  he  said,  "  what  can  bring  you  into  this  place  ? 
Do  you  not  see  that  it  is  made  for  bandits  and  not  for 
hermits  ?  To  dwell  here  you  must  live  by  robbery  and  the 
wealth  of  others.  "We  will  not  tolerate  those  who  would 
live  by  their  own  labour ;  and  besides,  the  soil  is  barren ; 
you  may  take  pains  to  cultivate  it,  but  it  will  give  you  back 
nothing."  "  I  come,"  answered  the  saint,  "  to  weep  for  my 
sins ;  under  the  protection  of  God  I  fear  the  menaces  of 
no  man,  nor  yet  the  hardships  of  any  labour.  The  Lord 
knoweth  how  to  spread  a  table  for  His  servants  in  the  wilder- 
ness ;  and  thou  thyself,  if  thou  wilt,  mayst  seat  thyself  at  it 
with  me."  The  brigand  said  nothing,  but  returned  next  day 
to  join  Ebrulph  with  three  loaves  baked  under  the  ashes, 
and  a  honeycomb  :  he  and  his  companions  became  the  first 
monks  of  the  new  monastery,  afterwards  celebrated  under 
the  name  of  its  holy  founder.^  The  place  from  which  all 
men  fled  soon  became  the  refuge  of  the  poor ;  alms  took  the 
place  of  robbery,  and  to  such  an  extent,  that  one  day  when 
a  beggar  had  been  sent  away  because  the  new-born  com- 
munity had  only  half  a  loaf  remaining,  Ebrulph  sent  after 
him  to  give  him  that  half,  trusting  for  himself  and  his 
brethren  to  the  alms  of  heaven.  They  wanted  so  little 
from  him  that  he  was  able  to  found  and  govern  fifteen 
other  monasteries.^ 


^  This  name  was  afterwards  translated  by  the  word  Hiesmois,  and  was 
used  to  designate  an  archdeaconry  of  the  diocese  of  Seez. — J.  Desnoyees, 
Topogr.  EccUs.  de  la  France  au  Moyen  Age,  p.  166. 

2  Ouche,  or  St.  Evroul,  in  the  diocese  of  Lisieux ;  in  Latin  Uticum, 
Uticense. 

^  "Admodum  nobili  ortus  prosapia.  .  .  .  Nobilitatis  lampade  clarus, 
mox  innotuit  Chlotario  regi  .  .  .  cseteris  prselatus  maximum  in  palatio 
obtineret  locum.  .  .  .  Quae  silva  densitate  arborum  horribilis,  crebris 
latronum  discursibus.    .   .    .    O  monachi !   quae  turbationis  causa  nostras 


202  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

These  were  not,  however,  the  only  encounters  or  the  sole 
intercourse  which  their  voluntary  exile  in  the  woods  procured 
to  the  monks  of  the  Merovingian  age.  At  the  other  ex- 
tremity of  the  social  scale  they  excited  the  same  feelings 
of  surprise  and  sympathy.  They  were  perpetually  found  out 
and  disturbed  by  kings  and  nobles,  who  passed  in  the  chase 
all  the  time  which  was  not  occupied  in  war.  All  the  Franks 
of  high  rank  and  their  trusty  followers  gave  themselves  up  to 
that  exercise  with  a  passion  which  nothing  else  in  their  life 
surpassed.  In  the  vast  forests  which  covered  Gaul  they 
found,  not  only  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  game,  but,  above 
all,  animals  of  size  and  force  so  formidable  as  to  offer  them 
all  the  perils  and  emotions  of  war.  The  elan,  the  buffalo, 
the  bison,  and  especially  the  urus  (Auerochs),  so  famous  for 
its  ferocity,  were  adversaries  worthy  of  the  boldest  combatant 
or  the  most  warlike  prince.  But  there,  in  the  midst  of  the 
forest,  Keligion  awaited  them ;  and  while  they  thought  only 
of  sport,  and  of  pursuing  the  deer,  she  raised  before  them 
imposing  and  unexpected  sights  which  filled  them  with 
emotion  and  respect.  Sometimes  the  spectacle  of  these 
solitaries,  vowed  to  the  service  of  God,  was  enough  to  con- 
vert to  monastic  life  the  cavalier  who  came  upon  them 
suddenly  when  he  reckoned  upon  striking  his  prey  with 
spear  or  javelin.  Such  was  the  case  with  Bracchio,  a  young 
Thuringian  huntsman,  attached  to  the  person  of  the  Frank 
Duke  of  Auvergne,  and  perhaps  brought,  like  Kadegund, 
from  his  native  land,  after  the  conquest  of  Thuringia  by  that 
same  son  of  Clovis  who  had  listened  to  and  honoured  the  slave 
Portianus.^     This  Bracchio,  still  savage  like  his  name,  which 

partes  coegit  adire  ?  ...  An  nescitis  quia  hie  est  locus  latronum  et  non 
heremitarum  ?  .  .  .  arva  infructuosa,  vestraque  iabori  ingrata  invenistis. 
.  .  .  Non  habeo,  inquit  (minister),  nisi  dimidium  panis  quem  reservo 
servulis  nostris.  Nam  cajtera  secundum  jussum  tuum  erogavi.  .  .  .  Cito 
curre  et  largire.  .  .  .  Accipe,  Domine,  eleemosynam  quem  tibi  abbas 
misit.  .  .  .  Ecce  ante  solis  occasum  quidam  clitellarius  pro  foribus  cellulae 
visus  est,  pane  et  vino  sufficienter  onustus." — Orderic  Vital.,  lib.  vi.  pp. 
609,  612.  ^  See  above,  p.  138. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  203 

signifies  a  lear's  cub,  passed  his  life  hunting  in  the  vast  oak 
woods  which  still  covered  the  north  of  Auvergne.  In  hot  pur- 
suit of  an  enormous  boar,  he  was  led  one  day  to  the  threshold 
of  the  hermitage  in  which  a  noble  Auvergnat,  named  Emilian, 
whom  even  the  wild  animals  had  learned  to  respect,  lived  as 
an  anchorite.  The  dogs  stopped  short  and  dared  not  attack 
the  boar  ;  the  young  hunter  alighted  from  his  horse,  saluted 
the  old  man,  and  sat  down  to  rest  by  his  side.  The  Gallo- 
Roman  opened  his  arms  to  the  German,  and  spoke  to  him  of 
the  infinite  sweetness  of  solitude  with  God.  The  Bear's 
cub  listened,  and  left  him  without  replying,  but  already  de- 
cided in  his  heart.  Soon  after  he  applied  himself  to  learn 
reading  and  writing,  seeking  instruction  for  that  purpose 
from  the  priests  and  monks  whom  he  met  on  his  road.  At 
the  end  of  three  years  he  could  read  the  Psalter.  Then,  his 
master  having  died,  he  went  to  join  Emilian,  who  bequeathed 
to  him  his  hermitage,  from  which  he  was  taken  to  re-establish 
relaxed  discipline  at  Menat,  in  that  ancient  monastery,  the 
mutilated  church  of  which  is  still  admired  on  the  picturesque 
banks  of  the  Sioule.^ 

But  the  most  frequent  results  of  these  encounters  were 
gifts  and  foundations  suggested  to  the  munificence  of  princes 
and  great  men  by  recollection  of  the  various  and  deep  im- 
pressions left  upon  their  souls  by  the  language  and  aspect 
of  these  men  of  peace  and  prayer,  buried  in  the  depths  of 
the  woods.  Their  intervention  in  favour  of  the  animals 
pursued  by  these  powerful  hunters,  and  the  right  of  asylum, 
so  to  speak,  which  they  had  established  for  the  game  in  their 

1  "  Nomine  Bracchio,  quod  in  eorum  lingua  interpretatur  ursi  catulus 
,  .  .  puer  discernit  non  sine  grandi  admiratione  quod  aprum,  quern  in- 
choaverat  sequi  ferum,  in  conspectu  senis  mansuetum  adstare  videbat  ut 
agnum."— Gkeg.  Tueon.,  VUw  Pair.,  c.  12.  Menat  is  now  a  district 
country-town  of  Puy-de-D6me.  The  remains  of  the  Abbey  of  Menat,  re- 
stored in  the  seventh  century  by  St.  Menele,  consist  of  a  church  still 
beautiful  and  curious,  which  was  happily  preserved  from  a  modern  restora- 
tion, between  1843  and  1847,  by  the  intelligence  and  devotion  of  the  curate, 
M.  Maison. 


204  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

neighbourhood,  almost  always  led  to  incidents  which,  told 
long  after,  were  transformed  and  embellished  at  pleasure, 
and  which,  engraved  upon  the  popular  memory,  associated 
themselves  by  an  indissoluble  link  with  the  fame  and  great- 
ness of  numerous  monasteries  whose  origin  is  traced  back  to 
these  sylvan  traditions. 

While  the  chiefs  and  dependants  of  the  Gallo-Frank  aris- 
tocracy visited  only  by  intervals,  and  for  the  mere  pleasure 
of  destruction,  the  shades  under  which  the  entire  life  of  the 
monks  was  passed,  these  recluses  naturally  lived  in  a  kind 
of  familiarity  with  the  animals  which  they  saw  bounding 
around  them,  whose  instincts  and  habits  they  studied  at  their 
leisure,  and  which,  in  course  of  time,  they  easily  managed 
to  tame.  It  might  be  said  that,  by  a  kind  of  instinctive 
agreement,  they  respected  each  other.  In  the  numberless 
legends  which  depict  monastic  life  in  the  forest,  there  is  not 
a  single  example  of  a  monk  who  was  devoured  or  even 
threatened  by  the  most  ferocious  animals ;  nor  do  we  ever 
see  that  they  betook  themselves  to  the  chase,  even  when 
urged  by  hunger,  by  which  they  sometimes  suffered  to  ex- 
tremity. How,  then,  can  we  wonder  that,  seeing  themselves 
pursued  and  struck  by  pitiless  strangers,  these  animals 
should  seek  refuge  with  the  peaceful  guests  of  that  solitude 
which  they  inhabited  together  ?  and  how  can  we  fail  to 
understand  why  Christian  nations,  accustomed  for  ages  to 
find  shelter  and  protection  with  the  monks  from  every 
violence,  should  love  to  recall  these  touching  legends  which 
consecrate,  under  a  poetical  and  popular  form,  the  thought, 
that  the  dwelling  of  the  saints  is  the  inviolable  refuge  of 
weakness  pursued  by  strength  ?  ^ 

One  of  the  first  and  most  curious  examples  of  these 
relations  between  the  king  and  the  monks,  in  which  the 

1  M.  Charles  Louandre,  in  an  article  entitled  the  Epopee  des  Animaux 
{Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  of  the  15th  December  1853),  has  perfectly  entered 
into  and  described  the  relations  of  the  monks  with  the  wild  animals  in  the 
forests  of  Gaul. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  205 

wood  and  animals  served  as  intermediary  influences,  is  that 
of  Childebert  and  the  holy  abbot  Karileff.  Karileff  was  a 
noble  Auvergnat,  who,  having  first  been  led  to  Menat,  and 
then  become  the  companion  of  St.  Avitus  and  St.  Mesmin 
at  Micy,  in  the  Orleannaise,  had  ended  by  taking  refuge 
with  two  companions  in  a  fertile  glade  in  the  woods  of 
Maine.  Cultivating  this  unknown  corner  of  the  earth,  he 
lived  surrounded  by  all  kinds  of  animals,  and,  among  others, 
by  a  wild  buffalo,  an  animal  already  rare  in  that  country, 
and  which  he  had  succeeded  in  taming  completely.  It  was 
a  pleasure,  says  the  legend,  to  see  the  old  man  standing  by 
the  side  of  this  monster,  occupied  in  caressing  him,  gently 
rubbing  him  between  his  horns  or  along  his  enormous 
dewlaps  and  the  folds  of  flesh  round  his  strong  neck ; 
after  which  the  animal,  grateful,  but  faithful  to  its  instinct, 
regained  at  a  gallop  the  depths  of  the  forest. 

Childebert,  the  son  of  Clovis,  is,  as  we  have  already  said, 
the  great  hero  of  monastic  legends.  He  must  have  loved 
the  chase  as  passionately  as  any  of  his  ancestors  or  suc- 
cessors, for  in  almost  all  the  legends  which  mention  him  he 
is  occupied  in  this  pursuit.  Arriving  in  Maine,  with  Queen 
Ultrogoth,  to  pursue  his  ordinary  sport,  he  heard  with  joy 
that  a  buffalo,  an  animal  almost  unknown  by  that  time,  had 
been  seen  in  the  neighbourhood.  All  is  arranged  next  day 
that  this  extraordinary  chase  may  have  full  success ;  the 
bows  and  arrows  are  prepared  in  haste,  the  trail  of  the  beast 
sought  at  break  of  day,  the  dogs  first  held  in  leash,  then 
slipped,  and  giving  voice  with  full  mouth  ;  the  historian  of 
the  solitary  gives  us  all  the  details  with  the  gusto  of  a 
practised  hunter.  The  terrified  bufialo  fled  to  take  refuge 
near  the  cell  of  his  friend,  and  when  the  huntsmen  ap- 
proached they  saw  the  man  of  God  standing  beside  the 
beast  to  protect  it.  The  king  was  told  of  it,  and,  hastening 
forward  indignant,  cried  in  a  furious  tone,  when  he  saw 
Karileff  in  prayer  and  the  buffalo  tranquil  beside  him,  "  How 
are  you  so  bold,  unknown  wretches,  as  to  invade  thus  an 


206  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

unconceded  forest  of  my  domain,  and  to  trouble  the  great- 
ness of  my  hunting  ?  "  The  monk  attempted  to  calm  him, 
and  protested  that  he  had  come  there  only  to  serve  God 
apart  from  men,  and  not  to  despise  the  sovereign  authority 
or  disturb  the  royal  game.  "  I  order  thee,"  answered  the 
king,  "  thee  and  thine,  to  leave  this  place  instantly ;  woe  to 
thee  if  thou  art  found  here  again  !  "  Having  said  this  he 
went  away  scornfully  ;  but  had  scarcely  taken  a  few  steps 
when  his  courser  stopped  short ;  in  vain  he  struck  his  spurs 
deep  into  the  bleeding  flanks  of  the  horse ;  he  could  not 
advance  a  step.  A  faithful  servant  warned  him  to  calm 
himself.  Childebert  listened  to  him,  returned  towards  the 
saint,  and  alighting,  received  his  blessing,  drank  of  the 
wine  of  a  little  vineyard  which  the  solitary  had  planted  near 
his  cell,  and,  though  he  found  the  wine  bad  enough,  kissed 
the  venerable  hand  that  offered  it,  and  ended  by  bestowing 
all  the  lands  of  the  royal  treasury  in  that  neighbourhood 
upon  him,  that  he  might  build  a  monastery  there.  The 
saint  at  first  refused  the  donation,  but  at  length  accepted  as 
much  ground  as  he  could  ride  round  in  a  day,  mounted  on 
his  ass  ;  and  in  this  enclosure  rose  the  abbey  from  which 
has  come  the  existing  city  of  St.  Calais,^ 

Returning  to  the  queen,  Childebert  told  her  his  adven- 
ture. Ultrogoth,  already  much  interested  in  the  monks, 
was  eager  in  her  turn  to  see  the  holy  recluse.      She  sent  to 

^  "  Parentibus  secundum  seculi  dignitatem  clarissimis  ortus.  .  .  .  Locus 
tantummodo  feris  eremique  familiarissimis  animantibus  pervius.  .  .  .  Erat 
spectabile  videre  bubulum,  qui  in  ea  provincia  difficile  est  inventu.  .  .  . 
Lento  ungue  setas  inter  cornua  mulcentem,  nee  non  colli  toros  atque 
palearia  tractantem.  ...  At  ferus  hoc  contractatu  velut  benedictione 
donatus  prsepeti  cursu  vastas  repetebat  solitudines.  .  .  .  Signaejusitineris 
diu  rimata  reperiunt  .  .  .  acres  molossos  funibus  absolvunt  .  .  .  canum 
latratui  credentes.  .  .  .  Invenimus  in  quodam  tugurio  hominem  nobis  in- 
cognitum  .  .  .  post  tergum  illius  adstantem  bubulum.  .  .  .  Unde  vobis,  o 
incognitse  personse  !  tanta  prsesumptionis  audacia,  ut  ausi  sitis  .  .  .  uostrEe 
venationis  dignitatem  .  .  .  mutilare.  .  .  .  Est  aliquid  vini  qnod  parva  vitis 
hie  inventa  atque  exculta  elicuit.  .  .  .  Poculum  rex  .  .  .  pro  dantis  digni- 
tate  potius  quam  pro  sui  sapore  suscepit."— Siviaedus,  Vita  S.  Karilefi,  c. 
4,  14,  20. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  20/ 

ask  his  permission  to  visit  him,  promising,  if  he  consented, 
to  give  him  full  possession  of  the  entire  domain  of  which  he 
occupied  only  a  part.  But  Karileff  obstinately  refused  her 
request.  "  As  long  as  I  live,"  he  said  to  the  envoy  of  the 
queen,  "I  shall  never  see  the  face  of  a  woman,  and  no 
woman  shall  ever  enter  my  monastery.  And  why  should 
this  queen  be  so  desirous  of  seeing  a  man  disfigured  by 
fasts  and  rural  labours,  soiled  and  covered  with  stains  like 
a  chameleon  ?  Besides,  I  know  the  deceptions  of  the  old 
enemy  :  we  must  needs  defy,  even  in  the  horror  of  the 
desert,  temptations  which  made  Adam  lose  Paradise,  with 
the  happiness  of  life  and  his  intercourse  with  God.  Say  then 
to  the  queen  that  I  will  pray  for  her,  but  that  it  does  not 
become  a  monk  to  sell  the  sight  of  his  face  to  a  woman,  and 
that,  as  for  her  lands,  she  must  give  them  to  whom  she  will. 
Say  to  her  that  the  monks  have  no  need  of  great  posses- 
sions, nor  she  of  my  blessing  ;  all  that  she  can  hope  to  have 
from  us,  her  servants,  she  will  have,  remaining  in  her  own 
house."  ^ 

The  same  Childebert,  softened  and  reconciled  to  the 
habits  of  the  monks,  appears  in  the  legend  of  St.  Marculph, 
that  brave  abbot  of  Cotentin,  whose  exploits  against  the 
Saxon  pirates,  and  friendship  with  the  king  of  Paris,  we 
have  already  seen.^ 

Before  his  death,  the  abbot  of  Nanteuil  went  to  ask 
from  the  king  a  confirmation  of  all  the  numerous  gifts  which 
the  monasteries  founded  by  him  had  already  received.  As 
he  approached  Compi^gne,  where  Childebert  then  resided, 
and  while  he  rested  from  the  fatigues  of  his  journey  in  a 
field  upon  the  bank  of  the  Oise,  the  king's  huntsmen  passed 
him,   pursuing  a  hare.      The  animal,  after  many  doubles, 

^  "  Omnia  fisci  illius,  in  cujus  parte  resident,  ei  attribuam.  .  .  .  Unde 
talia  reginse  ut  tantopere  me  videre  exoptet  diutinis  chameleontis  colo- 
ribus  incultum.  .  .  .  Non  decet  nos  .  .  .  vendere  nostrum  mulieribus 
aspectum.  .  .  .  Fisci  sui  partem  cni  libuerit  attribuat." — Vita  S.  Karilefi, 
c.  28.     Compare  Yepes,  Coronic.  General.,  t.  i,  pp.  193,  195. 

*  Page  143. 


2o8  THE   MONKS   UNDER 

took  refuge  under  the  robe  of  the  abbot.  At  this  sight  one 
of  the  hunters  addressed  him  rudely  :  "  How  darest  thou, 
priest,  lay  hands  upon  the  king's  game  ?  Restore  the  hare, 
or  I  will  cut  thy  throat,"  Marculph  released  the  hare ; 
but  the  dogs  all  at  once  became  motionless,  the  brutal  hunts- 
man fell  from  his  horse,  and  in  falling  was  seriously  injured. 
At  the  prayer  of  his  companions  in  the  chase,  the  saint 
raised  him  up  and  healed  him.  Then  the  king,  who  was 
hunting  in  another  direction,  having  heard  what  had  occurred, 
went  to  meet  his  friend,  alighted  whenever  he  perceived 
him,  asked  his  blessing,  embraced  him  tenderly,  led  him  to 
the  castle  of  Compiegne,  to  spend  the  night,  and  granted 
him  all  that  he  asked,  in  an  act  of  which  Queen  Ultrogoth 
and  all  the  royal  vassals  present  were  the  witnesses  and 
sureties.'^ 

The  name  of  a  certain  Childebert  is  also  connected  in 
some  versions  of  a  famous  legend  with  the  memory  of  one 
of  those  holy  abbots  who  were  so  popular  in  the  middle 
ages,  not  only  in  France,  but  everywhere,  and  especially 
in  England  and  Germany.  A  young  Greek  of  illustrious 
birth,  named  ^gidius,^  had  come,  following  the  steps 
of  Lazarus  and  of  the  Magdalene,  to  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and,  landing  near  the  mouth  of  the  Rhone, 
had  grown  old  in  solitude,  hidden  in  the  depths  of  a  vast 
forest,  without  any  other  nourishment  than  the  milk  of  a 
doe  which  lay  in  his  grotto.  But  one  day  as  the  king  of 
the   country,  named,  according  to  some,  Childebert,  king  of 

1  "Qua  temeritate,  clerice,  venationem  regis  invadere  prJESumpsisti ? 
Redde  earn,  alioquin  meo  gladio  interibis.  ...  Ex  equo  quern  calcaribus 
utrimque  fodiens  ut  fugientem  consequeretur  corruens.  .  .  .  Mutuis  sese 
complexibus  diu  deosculati.  .  .  .  Castrum  pariter  intraverunt  prasdictum 
.  .  .  prsesentibus  regina  Ultrogode  cseterisque  suis  optimatibus  omnibus 
attestantibus."— Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  124. 

2  We  have  transformed  this  into  St.  Gilles  :  in  English,  St.  Giles,  whose 
name  is  borne  by  a  multitude  of  parishes,  and  by  one  of  the  most  populous 
quarters  of  London.  In  Germany,  St.  .a:gidius  is  counted  among  the  four- 
teen saints  specially  invoked  in  all  cases  of  distress,  under  the  name  of 
Auxiliary  Saints,  Die  Vierzehn  Nothhelfer. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  209 

the  Franks,  and  to  others,  Flavian,  king  of  the  Goths/  was 
following  the  chase  in  this  forest,  the  doe  was  started  and 
pursued  into  the  cavern  by  the  hunters ;  one  of  them  drew 
an  arrow  upon  her,  which  struck  the  hand  which  the  soli- 
tary raised  to  protect  his  companion.  The  king,  touched, 
as  these  wild  but  simple  natures  almost  always  were,  by  the 
sight  of  this  grand  old  man,  almost  naked,  caused  the 
wound  to  be  dressed,  returned  often  to  see  him,  and  at  last 
made  him  consent  to  the  erection  of  a  monastery  upon  the 
site  of  his  grotto,  of  which  he  became  abbot,  and  where  he 
died  in  great  sanctity.  Such  was,  according  to  popular 
tradition,"  the  origin  of  that  celebrated  and  powerful  abbey 
of  St.  Gilles,  which  became  one  of  the  great  pilgrim  shrines 
of  the  middle  ages,  and  gave  birth  to  a  town,  the  capital  of 
a  district  whose  name  was  borne  with  pride  by  one  of  the 
most  powerful  feudal  races,  and  which  retains  still  a  vener- 
able church,  classed  among  our  most  remarkable  monuments 
of  architecture  and  sculpture. 

We  meet  the  same  incident  in  the  legend  of  St.  Nennok, 
the  young  and  beautiful  daughter  of  a  British  king,  who 
gave  up  a  husband  whom  her  father  wished  to  bestow  her 
upon,  in  order  to  emigrate  to  Armorica,  and  devote  herself 
to  monastic  life.  The  prince  of  the  country,  pursuing  a 
stag  in  the  neighbourhood  of  her  monastery,  saw  the  animal, 
half  dead  with  fatigue,  take  refuge  within  the  holy  enclosure, 
upon  which  the  hounds  stopped  short,  not  daring  to  go 
farther.  Alighting  from  his  horse  and  entering  the  church, 
he  found  the  stag  couched  at  the  feet  of  the  young  abbess, 
amid  the  choir  of  nuns  who  were  singing  the  service.  He 
not  only  granted  the  animal  its  life,  but  himself  remained 

1  No  such  name  is  known  among  the  Gothic  kings :  the  BoUandists 
suppose  it  to  refer  to  King  Wamba,  who  reigned  from  672  to  680. 

2  Mabillon  (Annal.,  t.  i.  p.  99),  and  especially  the  BoUandists  (vol.  i. 
Sept.),  have  issued  long  dissertations  upon  the  times  of  St.  ^gidius.  He 
has  generally  been  considered  as  contemporary  with  St.  Ctesarius  of  Aries 
in  the  sixth  century.  The  Bollandists  say  the  seventh  century,  and  pro- 
long his  life  to  the  time  of  Charles  Martel. 

VOL.  II.  O 


2IO  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

in  the  community  for  a  whole  week,  and  at  the  end  of  that 
time  laid  upon  the  altar  an  act  of  donation,  granting  the 
surrounding  lands  to  the  monastery,  with  the  addition  of 
three  hundred  horses  and  mares,  and  three  hundred  head  of 
cattle.'^  It  is  easy  to  perceive  in  this  history  the  popular 
translation  of  a  more  natural  incident,  of  the  asylum  offered 
by  the  abbess  Nennok  to  another  daughter  of  a  British  king, 
whom  her  husband,  out  of  love  for  monastic  life,  had  for- 
saken, and  who,  setting  out  to  seek  him  through  Armorica, 
had  been  pursued  by  a  licentious  noble,  and  had  found 
shelter  only  in  the  cell  of  her  husband,  from  whence  she 
passed  to  the  monastery  of  Lan-Nennok  in  Plemeur.^ 

It  will  be  seen  hereafter  how  Clotaire  II.,  when  he  became 
master  of  the  Frank  monarchy,  and  was  hunting  in  one  of 
the  royal  forests  of  Sequania,  pursued  an  enormous  boar 
into  the  oratory  inhabited  by  an  old  Irish  monk,  Deicolus, 
who  had  come  to  Gaul  with  St.  Columba ;  and,  touched  by 
seeing  thi^  ferocious  beast  lying  before  the  little  altar  where 
the  recluse  stranger  was  at  prayer,  the  king  made  a  dona- 
tion to  him  of  all  the  land  belonging  to  the  royal  treasury 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  cell.  When  the  donation  was 
made  and  accepted,  the  man  of  God,  who  had  stipulated 
that  the  life  of  the  boar  should  be  saved,  took  care  to  let 
him  go  free,  and  to  protect  his  flight  into  the  wood.^ 

The  great  feudal  vassals,  as  passionately  fond  of  the  chase 
as  were  the  kings,  and  as  much  occupied  with  it,  yielded, 
like  them,  to  the  influence  of  the  monks  when  the  latter 
appeared  before  them  to  protect  the  companions  of  their 
solitude.      Basolus,  born  of  a  noble  race  in   Limousin,  and 

^  "Cervus  ipse  fere  extinctus  lassitudine,  ad  ecclesiam  sanctse  Dei 
famuli  conjungit.  .  .  .  Dux  et  ipse  veniens  descendit  .  .  .  cernensque  in 
medio  psallentium  .  .  .  sanctimonalium  choro,  ante  beata3  pedes  virginis 
mansuefactam  bestiam  jacuisse." — Bolland.,  t.  i.  Junii,  p.  410. 

2  Albert  le  Grand,  Vie  de  St.  Efflam,  p.  705. 

*  "  Singularem  maximumque  aprum  .  .  .  mitis  viri  Dei  cellam  ingredi- 
tur  .  .  .  ante  altare  accubare.  .  .  .  Viri  Dei  jussione  absque  uUius  lesions 
consueta  cum  impetu  petiit  lustra." — Vita  S.  Deicoli,  c.  13. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  211 

founder  of  the  monastery  of  Viergy/  in  the  hill  country  of 
Keims,  having  built  a  cell  in  the  depth  of  the  forest, 
sheltered  by  a  stone  cross,  and  where  his  whole  furniture 
consisted  of  a  little  lectern  admirably  sculptured,  to  bear 
the  Holy  Scriptures  on  which  he  meditated  unceasingly, 
was  one  day  disturbed  in  his  devotions  by  a  great  boar, 
which  laid  itself  at  his  feet,  as  if  to  ask  mercy  for  its  life. 
Following  the  animal,  came  on  horseback  one  of  the  most 
powerful  lords  of  the  neighbourhood,  Attila,  whom  the  mere 
glance  of  the  solitary  brought  to  a  standstill,  and  rendered 
motionless.  He  was  a  good  man  at  bottom,  says  the  legend, 
though  a  great  hunter :  he  evidenced  this  by  making  a  gift 
to  the  abbot  of  all  he  possessed  round  the  cell.  Four  cen- 
turies after,  this  tradition  remained  so  fresh,  that  by  an 
agreement,  scrupulously  observed,  the  game  hunted  in  the 
forest  of  Reims  was  always  spared,  both  by  the  dogs  and 
hunters,  when  it  could  reach  the  little  wood  over  which  the 
cross  of  St.  Basle  rose.^ 

And  it  was  not  only  from  man,  but  from  other  animals 
that  the  compassionate  solitaries  protected  the  creatures 
whom  they  had  accepted  as  guests  of  their  solitude. 

Launomar,  of  whom  we  have  already  quoted  several 
anecdotes,  was  wandering  in  his  forest  of  Perche,  chanting 
psalms,  when  he  encountered  a  doe  flying  from  some  wolves. 
He  saw  in  this  the  symbol  of  a  Christian  soul  pursued  by 
devils :   he  wept  for  pity,   and  then   cried    to  the   wolves, 

^  Viriziacuvi — the  same  which  afterwards  took  the  name  of  St.  Basle. 
This  Basolus  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  Arverne  chief,  prisoner 
of  Clovis,  and  saved  by  his  daughter,  who  has  been  mentioned  before, 
page  138. 

2  "Natu  et  genere  nobilissimus.  .  .  .  Inter  condensa  silvarum  fruteta 
.  .  .  quae  crux  integerrima  ibi  permanet  usque  in  prassentem  diem.  .  .  . 
Lectoriolum  ligneum  sculpturee  artis  pulcherrima  specie  compositum.  .  .  . 
Quidam  prsepotens  .  .  .  venandi  gratia  (ud  illud  genus  est  hominum) 
.  .  .  sicut  erat  vir  bonus.  .  .  .  Hispida  bellua  quasi  vitse  sueb  imploratura 
prsesidium.  .  .  .  Extunc  mos  inolevisse  .  ,  .  et  usque  hodie  observatur,  ut 
si  .  .  .  quselibet  fuerit  venatio,  postquam  illius  intra  aggestum  silvula?." — 
Adso  (992),  Vita  S.  Basoli,  c.  7,  22,  23. 


212  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

"  Cruel  wretches,  return  to  your  dens,  and  leave  this  poor 
little  animal ;  the  Lord  wills  that  she  should  be  snatched 
from  your  bloody  fangs."  The  wolves  stopped  at  his  voice, 
and  turned  back  upon  the  road.  "  See,  then,"  said  he  to 
his  companion,  "  how  the  devil,  the  most  ferocious  of 
wolves,  is  always  seeking  some  one  to  devour  in  the 
Church  of  Christ."  However,  the  doe  followed  him,  and 
he  passed  two  hours  in  caressing  her  before  he  sent  her 
away.^ 

The  ancient  authors  who  record  these  incidents,  and 
many  others  of  the  same  kind,  are  unanimous  in  asserting 
that  this  supernatural  empire  of  the  old  monks  over  the 
animal  creation,  is  explained  by  the  primitive  innocence 
which  these  heroes  of  penitence  and  purity  had  won  back, 
and  which  placed  them  once  more  on  a  level  with  Adam 
and  Eve  in  the  terrestrial  Paradise.  The  rage  of  the 
ferocious  beasts,  says  one,  is  subdued  into  obedience  to  him 
who  lives  the  life  of  the  angels,  as  it  was  to  our  first  parents 
before  the  Fall.^  The  dignity,  says  another,  which  we  had 
lost  by  the  transgression  of  Adam  was  regained  by  the 
obedience  of  the  saints,  although  the  world  was  no  more  an 
Eden  to  them,  and  they  had  to  bear  the  weight  of  all  its 
distresses.  Our  first  father  received  from  the  Creator  the 
right  of  naming  every  living  creature  and  subduing  them 
to  his  will.  "  Have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and 
over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  every  living  thing  that 
moveth  upon  the  earth."  Was  it  not  by  the  same  right 
that  the  beasts  of  the  forest  obeyed  and  attached  themselves 
to  these  holy  men  like  humble  disciples  ?  ^  Is  it  wonderful, 
says  Bede,  that  he  who  faithfully  and  loyally  obeys  the 
Creator  of  the   universe   should,    in   his  turn,   see   all    the 

^  "Cruenti  persecutores,  ad  ergastula  revertimini  .  .  .  banc  vestris 
eruet  illsesatn  rictibus.  .  .  .  Desistite  persequi  banc  bestiolam.  .  .  .  Quam 
palpans  bomo  Dei  manu  sua  post  duas  boras  remisit." — ACT.  SS.  0.  S,  B., 
t.  i.  pp.  319,  324- 

"   Vita  S.  Launom.,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  319. 

3   Vita  S.  Karileji,  c.  23. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  21  3 

creatures  obedient  to  liis  orders  and  his  wishes  ?  ^  Two 
thousand  years  before  Redemption,  in  the  solitudes  of 
Idumea,  it  had  been  predicted  of  the  just  man  reconciled 
to  God  that  he  should  live  in  peace  with  the  wild  beasts. 
"  And  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  be  at  peace  with 
thee."  ^ 

The  dignity  of  history  loses  nothing  by  pausing  upon  these 
tales,  and  the  pious  trust  supported  by  them.  Written  by  a 
Christian,  and  for  Christians,  history  would  lie  to  herself 
if  she  affected  to  deny  or  ignore  the  supernatural  inter- 
vention of  Providence  in  the  life  of  the  saints  chosen  by 
God  to  guide,  console,  and  edify  His  faithful  people,  and, 
by  a  holy  example,  to  elevate  them  above  the  bonds  and 
necessities  of  terrestrial  life.  Certainly  fables  are  some- 
times mixed  with  truth  ;  imagination  has  allied  itself  to 
authentic  tradition  to  alter  or  supersede  it ;  and  there  have 
even  been  guilty  frauds  which  have  abused  the  faith  and 
piety  of  our  ancestors.  But  justice  had  been  done  on  these 
by  the  jealous  and  learned  criticism  of  those  great  masters 
of  historic  science  whom  the  religious  orders  have  furnished 
to  the  world,  long  before  the  systematic  disdain  and  ad- 
venturous theories  of  our  contemporary  authorities  had 
profited  by  some  inexactitudes  and  exaggerations,  to  throw 
back  the  whole  of  Catholic  tradition  into  the  rank  of  those 
semi-historic,  semi-poetic  mythologies,  which  precede  every 
incomplete  civilisation.  There  is  not  a  writer  of  authority 
among  us  who  would  hesitate  to  repeat  these  fine  expressions 
of  a  true  Christian  philosopher  :  "  Some  men  have  supposed 
it  a  mark  of  great  piety  to  tell  little  lies  in  favour  of  the 
articles  of  religion.  That  is  as  dangerous  as  it  is  useless : 
they  thus  run  the  risk  of  making  men  doubt  what  is  true 
out  of  hatred  for  that  which  is  false  ;  and  besides,  our  piety 

1  "Qui  enim  auctori  omnium  creaturarum  fideliter  et  integro  corde 
famulatur,  non  est  mirandum  si  ejus  imperils  ac  votis  omnis  creatura 
deserviat." — Bede,  in  Vita  S.  Cuthb.,  c.  13. 

2  Job  V.  23. 


2  14  THE   MONKS    UNDER 

has  so  many  truths  to  nourish  it,  that  lies  exist  at  their 
expense,  like  cowardly  soldiers  in  an  army  of  brave  men."  ^ 

All  Christian  writers  have  spoken  and  thought  thus  ;  but 
their  minds  have  been  no  less  influenced  by  the  sentiment 
which  dictated  to  Titus  Livius,  a  pagan  of  the  age  of  Augus- 
tus, these  noble  words,  which  no  Christian  pen  would  dis- 
avow :  "  I  am  not  ignorant  that  the  vulgar  spirit  which  does 
not  desire  the  interference  of  the  gods  in  present  affairs  is 
opposed  to  the  publication  of  the  wonders  of  the  past ;  but 
whilst  I  narrate  the  things  of  old,  it  appears  to  me  that  my 
heart  itself  enters  into  the  period  of  which  I  write  ;  I  feel 
that  religious  respect  constrains  me  to  reproduce  in  my 
annals  what  so  many  wise  men  have  thought  it  their  duty  to 
collect  for  posterity."  ^ 

^  "  Fuere  qui  magnae  pietatis  loco  ducerent  mendaciola  pro  religione 
confingere  :  quod  et  periculosum  est,  ne  veris  adiraatur  fides  propter  falsa, 
et  minime  necessarium  ;  quoniam  proprietate  nostra  tarn  multa  sunt  vera, 
ut  falsa  tanquam  ignavi  milites  atque  inutiles  oneri  sint,  magis  quam 
auxilio." — LUDOV.  ViVES,  De  Tradcndis  Discipulis,  lib.  v. 

*  "  Non  sum  nescius  ut  eadem  negligentia  qua  nihil  Deos  portendere 
vulgo  nunc  credant,  neque  nuntiari  admodum  ulla  prodigia  in  publicum, 
neque  in  annales  referri :  cseterum  et  mihi,  vetustas  res  scribenti,  nescio 
quo  pacto  antiqnus  fit  animus :  et  qujedam  religio  tenet,  quae  illi  pruden- 
tissimi  viri  publice  suscipienda  consuerint,  ea  pro  dignis  habere,  quae  in 
meos  annales  referam."— Tit.  Liv.,  lib.  xliii.  c.  13. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  here  a  fine  passage,  which  has  not  been 
suflBciently  admired,  from  Count  de  Maistre  : — 

"  With  regard  to  mythology,  hear  us  still  further.  Without  doubt,  all  re- 
ligion gives  rise  to  a  mythology  ;  but  do  not  forget,  dear  Count,  what  I  add 
to  that  statement,  that  the  mythology  of  the  Christian  religion  is  ahoays 
chaste,  ahmys  useful,  and  often  sublime,  without  it  being  possible,  by  a  par- 
ticular privilege,  to  confound  it  witli  religion  itself.  .  .  .  Hear,  I  pray  you, 
a  single  example  ;  it  is  taken  from  I  know  not  what  ascetic  book,  the  name 
of  which  has  escaped  me  : — 

"  A  saint,  whose  very  name  I  have  forgotten,  had  a  vision,  in  which  he 
saw  Satan  standing  before  the  throne  of  God,  and,  listening,  he  heard  the 
evil  spirit  say,  '  Why  hast  Thou  condemned  me,  who  have  offended  Thee  but 
once,  whilst  Thovi  savest  thousands  of  men  who  have  offended  Thee  many 
times  ? '     God  answered  him,  '  Hast  thou  ONCE  asked  pardon  of  Me  ? ' 

"  Behold  the  Christian  mythology  !  It  is  the  dramatic  truth,  which  has 
its  worth  and  effect  independently  of  the  literal  truth,  and  which  even 
gains  nothing  by  being  fact.     What  matter  whether  the  saint  had  or  had 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  21  5 

The  Church,  however,  could  not  be  answerable  for  those 
errors  or  falsehoods  which  have  crept  into  some  legends. 
She  obliges  no  one  to  believe  any  of  these  prodigies,  even  the 
best  verified  which  we  find  related  in  them.  But  when  such 
events  are  recorded  by  serious  authors,  and  especially  by 
contemporaries,  the  Church,  herself  founded  upon  miracles, 
acknowledges  and  commends  them  to  the  admiration  of 
Christians,  as  a  proof  of  the  faithfulness  of  His  promises, 
who  has  said  of  Himself,  that  "  He  will  be  glorified  in  His 
saints,"  and  that  "  he  that  believeth  on  Me,  the  works  that 
I  do  shall  he  do  also  ;  and  greater  works  than  these  shall 
he  do." 

It  is,  then,  both  just  and  natural  to  register  these  pious 
traditions,  without  pretending  to  assign  the  degree  of  cer- 
tainty which  belongs  to  them,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  put 
limits  to  the  omnipotence  of  God.  They  will  not  disturb 
the  minds  of  those  who  know  the  legitimate  necessities 
of  nations  accustomed  to  live  specially  by  faith,  and  what 
are  the  riches  of  divine  mercy  towards  humble  and  faithful 
hearts.  Touching  and  sincere  echoes  of  the  faith  of  our 
fathers,  they  have  nourished,  charmed,  and  consoled  twenty 
generations  of  energetic  and  fervent  Christians  during  the 
most  productive  and  brilliant  ages  of  Christendom.  Authen- 
tic or  not,  there  is  not  one  which  does  not  do  honour  to 
human  nature,  and  which  does  not  establish  some  victory  of 
weakness  over  strength,  or  good  over  evil. 

It  is  certain,  besides,  that  to  our  forefathers,  to  the  Gallo- 
Franks,  from  whom  we  have  the  honour  of  being  descended, 

not  heard  the  sublime  words  which  I  have  just  quoted  ?  The  great  point 
is  to  know  that  pardon  is  refused  only  to  him  who  does  not  ask  it.  St.  Augus- 
tine has  said,  in  a  manner  not  less  sublime  :  Dost  thou  fear  God  ?  conceal 
thyself  in  His  arms  (Vis  fugere  a  Deo,  fuge  ad  Deum).  To  you,  my  dear 
Count,  this  is  perhaps  as  striking  ;  but  for  the  crowd  much  is  necessary. 
I  say  perhaps,  for,  be  it  said  between  ourselves,  all  the  world  is  common- 
place on  this  point  ;  and  I  know  no  person  whom  dramatic  instruction 
does  not  strike  more  than  the  finest  morals  of  metaphysics." — Lettres,  t.  i. 
p.  235- 


2l6  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

the  miracle  seemed  one  of  the  most  ordinary  and  simple  con- 
ditions of  the  action  of  God  upon  the  world.^  The  marvels 
which  we  have  related  were  received  by  them  as  the  natural 
result  of  innocence  restored  by  sacrifice.  To  the  eyes  of 
recently- converted  nations,  dazzled  by  so  many  great  and 
holy  examples,  even  when  their  faith  remained  dull  and 
their  manners  ferocious,  a  man  completely  master  of  himself 
became  once  more  master  of  nature.  And  the  animals  who 
approached  these  marvellous  men  were  themselves  trans- 
formed, and  attained  to  a  clearer  intelligence  and  more 
lasting  gentleness.  All  kinds  of  attaching  qualities,  and 
natural  relations  with  the  existence  of  men  who  isolated 
themselves  from  their  fellow-creatures  to  live  in  community 
with  nature,  were  found  in  them.  Whilst  the  monastic 
doctors  found  pleasure  in  seeking  subjects  of  instruction,  or 
analogies  with  the  conditions  and  trials  of  religious  life,  in 
the  peculiarities  of  their  instincts  and  habits,  more  or  less 
faithfully  observed,  the  faithful  united  in  attributing  to  the 
holy  monks,  as  companions,  servants,  and  almost  friends, 
familiar  animals  whose  society  peopled  their  solitude,  and 
whose  docility  lightened  their  labours.  This  intelligence 
and  sympathy  with  the  animals,  as  with  all  animate  nature, 
is  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  monastic  legend.  An- 
tique fa,bles  may  sometimes  reappear  there,  but  always  to  be 
transfigured  to  the  advantage  of  a  holy  belief  or  a  difficult 
virtue. 

And  the  most  authentic  narratives  confirmed  these  pious 
traditions.  In  that  history  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Desert 
which  was  commenced  by  St.  Athanasius  and  St.  Jerome, 
there  are  a  thousand  incidents,  more  or  less  well  established, 
which  show  us  the  most  ferocious  animals  at  the  feet  of 

'  DOM  PiTEA,  Histoire  de  St.  Liger,  p.  xcii. 

^  See  the  curious  tract  of  S.  Pierre  Damien,  De  Bono  Religiosi  Status  et 
Variarum  Animantium  Tropologis  (op.  52),  in  which  he  draws  an  example 
of  monastic  virtue  from  the  habits  of  all  the  animals,  real  or  fabulous,  with 
which  the  natural  history  of  his  times  (such  as  was  set  forth  in  the  Besti- 
aires,  the  Physiologus,  &c. )  had  made  him  acquainted. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  2  17 

Anthony,  Pacome,  Macarius,  Hilarion,  and  their  emulators. 
At  each  page  are  to  be  seen  the  wild  asses,  the  crocodiles, 
the  hippopotami,  the  hyeenas,  and  especially  the  lions,  trans- 
formed into  respectful  companions,  and  docile  servants  of 
these  prodigies  of  sanctity  ;  and  the  conclusion  drawn  is,  not 
that  the  animals  had  reasonable  souls,  but  that  God  glorified 
those  who  devoted  themselves  to  His  glory  by  showing  thus 
how  all  nature  obeyed  man  before  he  was  shut  out  from 
Paradise  for  his  disobedience.  Let  us  confine  ourselves  to 
the  touching  history  of  Gerasimus,  the  Christian  Androcles, 
abbot  of  a  monastery  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  who 
had  drawn  a  thorn  out  of  the  foot  of  a  lion,  and  whom 
the  grateful  animal  would  never  abandon.  The  terrible 
beast  was,  after  a  fashion,  received  as  a  member  of  the 
community :  he  lived  upon  milk  and  boiled  herbs  like  the 
monks ;  he  drew  water  from  the  Jordan  for  the  wants 
of  the  monastery;  and  when  the  old  abbot  died  the  lion 
followed  him  to  the  grave  and  died  there,  howling  with 
grief.  ■^ 

The  Gaul,  Sulpicius  Severus,  who  must  be  regarded  as  the 
most  ancient  of  our  religious  annalists,  and  who  had  studied 
monastic  institutions  in  the  East,  confirms  in  his  Dialogues 
all  that  Eastern  writers  have  said  on  this  subject.  He  relates 
the  facts  of  which  he  himself  had  been  witness  in  the  The- 
baid :  how,  in  traversing  the  desert,  he  had  seen  the  monk 
who  accompanied  him  oiFer  the  fruit  of  the  palm  to  a  lion 
whom  they  met,  which  he  ate  quietly  and  peacefully  like  any 
domestic  animal ;  and  how,  in  the  hut  of  another  solitary,  a 
she-wolf  appeared  regularly  every  evening  at  the  supper-hour, 
and  waited  at  the  door  till  she  was  called  to  eat  the  remains 

1  "  Venit  leo  in  monasterium  et  quferebat  senem  suum.  .  .  .  Dicebant 
ei  :  Migravit  senex  ad  Dominum.  .  .  .  Et  stans  abbas  Sabbatius  supra  se- 
pulcrum  abbatis  Gerasimi  dixit  leoni :  Ecce  hie  senex  noster  sepultus  est : 
et  inclinavit  genua  supra  sepulcrum  senis.  .  .  .  Cum  ergo  id  leo  audisset 
et  vidisset  .  .  .  tunc  et  ipse  prostravit  se  .  .  .  et  rugiens  ita  continue  de- 
functus  est  super  sepulcrum  senis."— Joan.  Moschus,  De  Vit.  Patr.,  lib.  x. 
p.  894. 


2l8  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

of  the  little  repast,  after  which  she  licked  the  hand  of  her 
host,  who  caressed  her  familiarly.-^ 

Sulpicius  Severus  wrote,  when  he  had  returned  into  his 
own  country,  the  life  of  St.  Martin,  the  first  apostle  of  ceno- 
bitical  life  in  Gaul.  He  there  relates  that  the  great  bishop, 
visiting  his  diocese  and  walking  along  the  banks  of  the  Loire, 
followed  by  a  numerous  crowd,  perceived  the  aquatic  birds 
named  plungeons  pursuing  and  devouring  the  fish,  "  Behold," 
said  he,  "  the  image  of  the  devil :  see  how  he  lays  his  snares 
for  the  imprudent,  how  he  devours  them,  and  how  he  is  never 
satisfied."  And  immediately  he  commanded  these  aquatic 
birds  to  leave  the  waters  in  which  they  swam,  and  to  dwell 
henceforth  in  the  desert.  At  his  voice,  says  the  historian, 
and  to  the  great  admiration  of  the  multitude,  the  birds,  obey- 
ing him,  came  out  of  the  river,  and  flew  in  a  body  to  the 
skirts  of  the  neighbouring  forests.^ 

Who  does  not  remember  the  raven  who,  according  to  St. 
Jerome,  carried  a  half-loaf  every  day  to  the  hermit  Paul,  and 
who  brought  him  a  whole  one  the  day  that  Anthony  went 
to  visit  him  ?  Like  his  great  brethren  in  the  East,  the 
patriarch  of  the  Western  monks  had  also  his  familiar  bird, 
which,  however,  came  to  receive  its  food  instead  of  bringing 
food  to  him.  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  in  his  biography  of 
Benedict,  records  that,  while  still  at  his  first  monastery  of 
Subiaco,  a  raven  from  the  neighbouring  forest  came  to  the 
saint  at  every  meal  and  was  fed  out  of  his  own  hand.^ 

^  "  Habebam  unum  ex  fratribus  ducem  locorum  peritum.  .  .  .  Fera  paulu- 
lum  modesta.  ,  .  .  Accepit  tam  libere  quam  ullum  animal  domesticutn  ; 
et  cum  comedisset,  abscessit.  .  .  .  Alium  asque  singularem  virum  vidimus 
in  parvi  tugurio  .  .  .  lupa  ei  solita  erat  adstare  coenanti  .  ,  .  panem  qui 
ccenulse  superfuisset.  .  .  .  Manu  blanda  caput  triste  permulcet." — Sulp. 
Sever.,  Dial.,  1.  c.  7. 

2  "  Cum  suo  illo,  ut  semper  frequentissimo  .  .  .  comitatu,  merges  in 
flumine  conspicatur.  .  .  .  Forma,  inquit,  hsec  dsemonum  est.  .  .  .  Ita  grege 
facto  omnes  in  unum  illto  volucres  congregate  .  .  .  non  sine  admiratione 
multorum."— Sulp.  Sev.,  Epist.,  iii.  The  popular  name  of  Martins-pecheurs 
given  to  these  birds  is  probably  derived  from  this  legend. 

3  "  Ad  horam  refectionis  illius  ex  vicina  silva  corvus  venire  consueverat, 
et  panem  de  manu  ejus  accipere." — S.  Greg.  Magn.,  Dial.,  ii.  8. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  219 

These  tales,  piously  recorded  by  the  highest  genius  which 
the  Church  has  possessed,  prepare  us  to  listen  without  sur- 
prise to  many  other  traits  of  the  familiar  intimacy  of  the 
monks  with  the  inferior  creatures. 

Sometimes  wild  sparrows,  as  the  legend  goes,  came  down 
from  the  trees  to  gather  grains  of  corn  or  crumbs  of  bread 
from  the  hand  of  that  abbot  Maixent  before  whom  Clovis 
knelt,  on  his  return  from  his  victory  over  Alaric ;  and  the 
nations  thus  learned  how  great  was  his  humility  and  gentle- 
ness.^ Sometimes  other  little  woodland  birds  came  to  seek 
their  food  and  to  be  caressed  by  that  Walaric  who  will 
shortly  appear  before  us  as  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
disciples  of  St.  Columba,  the  apostle  of  Ponthieu,  and  the 
founder  of  the  great  monastery  of  Leuconaus.  Charmed 
with  this  gentle  company,  when  his  disciples  approached, 
and  when  the  larks  fluttered  terrified  round  him,  he  stopped 
the  monks  while  still  at  a  distance,  and  signed  to  them  to 
draw  back.  "  My  sons,"  he  said,  "  do  not  frighten  my  little 
friends,  do  them  no  harm  :  let  them  satisfy  themselves  with 
what  we  have  left."^  On  another  occasion  Karileff,  when 
binding  up  and  pruning  his  little  vineyard,  the  poor  produce 
of  which  he  had  offered  to  King  Childebert,  stifled  by  the 
heat,  had  taken  off  his  frock  and  hung  it  upon  an  oak ; 
and  when,  at  the  end  of  the  hard  day's  labour,  he  took  down 
his  monastic  habit,  he  found  that  a  wren,  the  smallest  and 
most  curious  bird  in  our  climate,  had  nestled  there  and 
laid  an  egg.  The  holy  man  was  so  touched  with  joy  and  ad- 
miration, that  he  passed  the  whole  night  in  praising  God.^ 

^  "  Multoties  aves  ferae  relictis  nemorum  ramis.  .  .  .  Cum  indomiti  pas- 
seres  in  dextera  illius  mensse  reliquias  colligebant,  mansuetudinem  et 
sanctitatem  ejus  populi  compererant." — Vita  S.  Maxent.,  c.  3  ;  Act.,  t.  i. 
p.  561. 

-  "  Ut  .  .  .  articulis  suis  quandocumque  vellet,  oblitas  suae  f eritatis  et 
quasi  domesticas  eas  palparet.  .  .  .  Circumquaque  volitantes  aves.  .  .  . 
Filii,  non  faciamus  eis  injuriam,  sed  permittamus  eas  paululum  satiari  de 
micis." — Vita  S.  Walarici,  c.  26. 

^  "  Vitem  circumf odiendo  et  superflua  quaeque  resecando.  Sudore  laboris 
coacto,  vestimentura  quod  Ciicullam  vocant.  .  .  .  Avicula  perexigua,  cujus 


2  20  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

A  similar  anecdote  is  related  of  St.  Malo,  one  of  the  great 
monastic  apostles  who  has  left  his  name  to  a  diocese  in  the 
northern  part  of  Armorica  ;  but  with  this  difference,  that 
the  latter  permitted  the  bird  to  continue  in  his  mantle  till 
her  brood  was  hatched/  Tradition  becomes  more  and  more 
blended  with  the  dreams  of  imagination  in  proportion  as  it 
penetrates  back  into  Celtic  legends  ;  one  of  which  records 
that  when  Keivin,  another  Breton  monk,  prayed  with  his 
hands  extended,  the  birds  laid  their  eggs  there.^ 

The  animals  naturally  sought  and  preferred  to  dwell  in 
the  domains  of  masters  who  were  so  gentle  and  paternal  ; 
from  which  arises  the  amusing  story  of  the  monk  Maglorius 
and  Count  Loiescon.  This  rich  Armorican  count,  whom 
Maglorius  had  cured  of  leprosy,  made  him  a  gift  of  the  half 
of  a  great  estate,  bathed  by  the  sea.  Maglorius  having 
come  to  take  possession,  all  the  birds  which  filled  the  woods 
on  the  estate,  and  all  the  fishes  which  inhabited  its  shore, 
precipitated  themselves  in  a  troop  towards  the  portion  which 
came  to  the  monk,  as  if  declaring  that  they  would  have  no 
other  lord  but  him.  When  the  count,  and  particularly  his 
wife,  saw  the  half  of  the  estate  which  they  retained  thus  de- 
populated, they  were  dismayed,  and  insisted  that  Maglorius 
should  exchange  with  them.  But  when  the  exchange  was 
made,  the  birds  and  fishes  immediately  followed  Maglorius, 
going  and  coming,  so  as  always  to  keep  in  the  portion  of 
the  monks.^ 

vocabulum  est  bitriscus,  dum  .  .  .  juxta  familiarem  sibi  consuetudinem 
intima  qussque  quadam  curiositate  perluserat,  .  .  .  Insestimabile  gaudium 
cnm  admiratione  mixtum  eum  occupavit." — Vita  S.  Karilefi,  c.  12. 

1  "  Dimisit  cappam  donee,  f otis  ovis,  pullos  in  tempore  excluderet  avicula." 
— SiGEB.  Gemblac,  Vita  S.  Maclovii,  c.  15,  ap.  SuR.,  t.  vi.  p.  378.  Com- 
pare Act,  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  180. 

2  OZANAM,  Etudes  Germaniques,  t.  ii.  p.  96. 

3  "  Comes  valde  divitiarum  opibus  obsitus  .  .  .  qui  multam  in  medios 
erogaverat  substantiam.  .  .  ,  Multitude  copiosa  avium  mirse  magnitudinis 
et  pulchrse  .  .  .  captura  ingens  piscium  congeries  .  .  .  partem  S.  Maglorii, 
ipsius  prsesentiJB  ac  si  Domino  suo  debitaj  servitutis  obsequium  prfcstans, 
expetiit."— Mabillon,  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  212. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  22  1 

And  it  was  the  animals  who  spontaneously  indicated  the 
predestined  sites  of  great  monastic  foundations.  In  relating 
the  history  of  the  martyr  monk,  St.  Leger,  we  shall  see  the 
position  of  Fecamp,  on  the  Neustrian  coast,  which  served 
him  both  as  a  prison  and  asylum,  pointed  out  to  the  Duke 
Ansegise  by  a  stag  which  he  was  hunting. 

It  was  told  in  Champagne,  that  when  Theodoric,  the  son 
of  a  famous  bandit,  but  himself  almoner  and  secretary  to  St. 
Eemy,  the  great  apostle  of  the  Franks,  desired  to  found  a 
house  which  he  might  himself  retire  to,  and  was  seeking  a 
site  for  it,  he  saw  a  white  eagle  hovering  in  the  air,  which 
seemed  to  mark  out  by  its  slow  and  circular  motion  the 
enclosure  of  the  future  monastery  ;  after  the  erection  of  the 
famous  abbey,  which  took  the  name  of  St.  Thierry,  this 
miraculous  eagle  appeared  in  the  same  place  every  year.'^ 

In  the  following  century,  St.  Nivard,  Archbishop  of 
Keims,  visiting  his  diocese  on  foot,  arrived  in  the  fine 
country  which  overlooks  the  course  of  the  Marne,  opposite 
Epernay  ;  and  finding  himself  fatigued,  slept  under  the 
shade  of  a  great  beech,  on  the  knees  of  his  companion, 
Berchaire.  During  his  sleep  he  saw  a  dove  descend  from 
heaven  upon  the  tree,  and,  after  marking  the  same  circuit 
three  times  by  flying  round  it,  reascend  to  the  skies.  Ber- 
chaire, who  had  not  slept,  saw  the  same  vision.  They 
agreed  to  build  an  abbey  there,  which  was  called  Hautvillers. 
Berchaire  was  its  first  abbot ;  and  the  high  altar  rose  upon 
the  same  spot  where  the  tree  had  stood  when  the  dove 
alighted,^  a  sweet  symbol  of  the  tranquil  innocence  which 
was  to  reign  there. 

1  "  Mittitur  de  sublimibus  aliger  in  similitudinem  aquilse  Angelas.  .  .  . 
Intelligunt  devoti  cultores  Dei  continue  divinum  esse  missum." — Act.  SS. 
O.  S.  B.,  swc.  i.  t.  i.  p.  597.  Compare  Fkodoaed,  Hist.  Rcmcns.,  i.  24  ; 
Baugier,  Memoires  Hist,  de  Champagne,  t.  i.  p.  32. 

2  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  scec.  ii.  t.  ii.  p.  802  ;  Baugiee,  p.  48.— Similar  anec- 
dotes are  related  of  the  foundation  of  Montfaucon  and  Avenay,  in  the 
same  canton.  This  Berchaire  is  the  same  monk  of  Luxeuil  who  afterwards 
founded  Moutier-en-Der,  in  the  south  of  Champagne. 


222  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

But  a  still  closer  degree  of  intercourse  between  the  monks 
and  animated  nature  appears  in  the  annals  of  these  early 
ages.  Innumerable  are  the  legends  which  show  these  wild 
animals  obedient  to  the  voice  of  the  monks,  reduced  to  a 
kind  of  domestic  condition  by  the  men  of  God,  obliged  to 
serve  and  follow  them.  We  shall  have  to  tell,  from  contem- 
porary narratives,  how  the  illustrious  founder  of  Luxeuil,  St. 
Columba,  in  traversing  the  forests  of  the  southern  Vosges, 
saw  the  squirrels  descend  from  the  trees,  to  leap  upon  his 
hand  and  hide  themselves  in  the  folds  of  his  cowl ;  how  he 
made  the  bears  obey  him ;  and  how  he  passed  with  safety 
through  troops  of  wolves,  who  rubbed  against  his  dress  with- 
out daring  to  touch  him.^ 

The  same  legends  are  to  be  found  on  the  coast  of  Arrao- 
rica  as  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube.  Now  it  is  Corbinian, 
the  Frank  monk  who  founded  the  bishopric  of  Freysingen, 
and  who,  crossing  the  Tyrol  to  go  to  Rome,  obliged  the  bear 
who  had  killed  one  of  his  baggage-horses  to  take  upon  his 
own  back  the  burden  of  his  victim,  and  thus  to  accompany 
him  to  Rome.^  Now  it  is  Samson,  the  metropolitan  of  Dol, 
who,  seeing  his  monks  disturbed  by  the  cries  of  the  wild 
birds,  collected  them  all  together  one  night  in  the  court  of 
the  monastery,  imposing  silence  upon  them,  and  the  next 
morning  dismissed  them,  forbidding  them  to  recommence 
their  cry,  an  interdiction  which  "  they  observed  inviolably."^ 

Now  it  is  Renan,  the  anchorite  of  Oornouaille,  who  com- 
manded a  wolf  to  give  up  the  sheep  of  a  poor  peasant,  which 
it  was  carrying  away,  and  who  was  obeyed  on  the  instant. 

1  Jonas,  Vit.  S.  Columbani,  c.  15,  27,  30. 

2  "Mitte  super  eum  sellam  saginariam  et  sterne  ilium,  et  saginam  super 
ilium  impone,  et  due  cum  aliis  caballis  in  viam  nostram.  .  .  .  Impositam 
sibi  saginam  ipse  ursus  quasi  domesticus  equus  Romam  usque  perduxit, 
ibique  a  viro  Dei  dimissus  abiit  viam  suam."— Akibo,  Vita  S.  Corbin.,  c. 
II,  ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  iii.  An  anecdote  almost  similar  is  told  of  St. 
Martin,  abbot  of  Vertou  in  Brittany,  during  his  pilgrimage  to  Rome.— 
Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  i.  p.  362. 

^  Albert  lb  Grand,  p.  423. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  223 

Or,  again,  the  blind  Herve,  patron  of  the  popular  singers  of 
Armorica,  whose  dog  had  been  devoured  by  a  wolf,  and  who 
compelled  this  wolf  humbly  to  take  the  dog's  place,  and, 
secured  in  a  leash,  to  accompany  him  in  his  wanderings.^ 

The  wolves  are  everywhere  to  be  met  with,  and  appear 
again  in  the  legend  of  St.  Malo.  Forced  by  his  persecutors 
to  hide  himself  in  a  solitude  of  Saintonge,  he  was  discovered 
by  the  crowd  attracted  there  to  see  a  tame  wolf,  which,  having 
devoured  the  ass  of  the  solitary,  came  every  day  to  seek  the 
ass's  panniers,  in  order  to  fill  them  with  the  wood  which  he 
had  to  collect  in  the  forest.^ 

But  none  of  the  monastic  apostles  of  our  little  Brittany 
ever  surpassed,  in  this  respect,  that  Paul  who  has  left  his 
name  to  the  city  and  diocese  of  St.  Pol-de-Leon,  and  whose 
empire  over  the  most  ferocious  animals  was  absolute,  and 
of  great  advantage  to  the  population.  Once  he  compelled 
a  buffalo,  who  had  overthrown  and  broken  in  pieces  with 
his  horns  a  cell  which  a  monk  had  built  near  the  fountain 
where  the  animal  came  to  drink,  to  disappear  permanently 
in  the  depths  of  the  forest.  Another  time,  he  tamed  and 
reduced  to  a  state  of  domestication  a  ferocious  she-bear  and 
her  cubs,  whose  race  was  long  marked  and  preserved  by  the 
country  people.^     Here  it  was  an  enormous  bear,  who  drew 

1  Heesaet  de  la  Villemakque,  Legende  Celtique,  p.  264.  Albert  le 
Grand  relates  that  St.  Herve  being  once  lodged  in  a  manor  "  very  much 
surrounded  by  reservoirs  and  fish-ponds,"  but  in  v^hich  he  was  much  in- 
commoded by  the  croaking  of  the  frogs,  he  imposed  on  them  everlasting 
silence,  "and  immediately  the  little  creatures  killed  themselves,  in  as 
short  a  time  as  if  they  had  had  their  throats  cut." — P.  318. 

2  "Viderat  quotidie  lupum  ad  horam  venire  et  cum  clitellis  quas  asinus 
portare  solebat  prout  sustinere  poterat  ligna  deferre." — Vita  S.  Maclovii, 
c.  18,  ap.  Mabillon. 

3  "  Sus  silvatica,  ad  cujus  ubera  sugent  esdependebant  porcelluli  .  .  . 
ferocissima,  beati  viri  molliter  blandita,  ac  si  prioribus  annis  fuit  edomita, 
deinceps  permansit  domestica,  ita  ut  per  plures  annos  illic  duraverit 
progenies  ejus  inter  reliquos  patriae  porcos  quasi  regalis  et  praecipua." — 
BOLLAND.,  t.  ii.  Martii,  pp.  116,  117.  The  same  incident  is  found  in  the 
legend  of  St.  Imier,  founder  of  the  town  of  that  name  in  the  Bernois  Jura. 
— Ap.  Trouillat,  Monum.  de  VEveche  de  Bale,  i.  p.  37 


2  24  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

back  before  him,  till  she  fell  into  a  ditch  and  broke  her  neck. 
There  it  was  a  crocodile  or  sea-serpent,  who  had  put  the 
count  of  the  canton  to  flight  with  all  his  soldiers,  whom 
Paul  compelled  to  throw  itself  into  the  sea,  upon  that  point 
of  the  coast  of  Cornouaille  where  a  whirlpool  called  VAMme 
du  Serpent  is  still  shown. ^ 

The  legend  does  not  stop  mid-way  :  it  adds  that,  seeing 
the  monastery  inhabited  by  his  sister  upon  the  sea-shore 
threatened  by  the  high  tides,  he  made  the  sea  draw  back 
four  thousand  paces,  and  commanded  the  nuns  to  mark  the 
new  boundary  of  the  waters  with  stones,  "  which,  on  the 
instant,  increased  into  great  and  high  rocks,  to  bridle  the 
fury  of  the  waves."  It  is  easy  to  understand  how,  under 
the  thatched  roof  of  the  Celtic  peasant's  hut,  the  works  of 
embankment,  which  were  doubtless  superintended  by  the 
Breton  emigrant  who  was  the  first  bishop  of  the  diocese, 
should  be  interpreted  thus. 

Traditions  relative  to  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
monks  over  the  wild  animals,  not  only  for  their  personal 
service,  but  for  the  advancement  of  their  labours  in  the 
clearance  and  cultivation  of  the  country,  abound  especially 
in  Armorica,  and  the  other  Celtic  countries.  Thegonnec, 
another  Breton  abbot,  had  the  materials  for  his  church 
carried  by  a  wolf.  And  Herve,  whom  we  have  just  quoted, 
made  a  wolf  labour  like  an  ox.  "  It  was  wonderful,"  says 
the  legend,  "  to  see  this  wolf  live  in  the  same  stable  with 
the  sheep  without  harming  them,  draw  the  plough,  bear 
burdens,  and  do  everything  else  like  a  domestic  animal."  ^ 

In  this  dramatic  struggle  of  the  monks  with  nature,  the 
wolves,  as  has  been  seen,  played  the  most  habitual  part ; 
but  the  stags  sometimes  disputed  with  them  the  first  place 

1  Trouillat,  Monum.,  p.  ii8.  With  this  legend  is  connected  the  origin 
of  the  house  of  Kergounadcc,  a  proper  name  which  signifies,  in  Breton,  he 
who  has  no  fear,  because  its  progenitor  was  the  only  individual  in  all  the 
parish  of  Cleder  who  dared  to  accompany  St.  Paul  in  his  expedition  against 
the  serpent :  "  quae  non  magnam  apud  nos  fidem  obtinent,"  add  the  prudent 
Bollandists.  ^  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  193. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  22$ 

in  these  wonderful  transformations.  In  Ireland  two  stags 
drew  to  its  last  dwelling-place  the  body  of  Kellac,  hermit 
and  bishop,  assassinated  by  his  four  disciples,  who,  before 
murdering  him,  had  kept  him  shut  up  for  a  whole  night  in 
the  hollow  of  an  oak  which  was  as  large  as  a  cavern/  The 
abbey  of  Lancarvan,  in  Cambria,  drew  its  name  and  origin 
from  the  memory  of  two  stags  which  the  Irish  disciples  of 
St.  Cadok  had  yoked  to  a  cart  laden  with  wood  for  the 
monastery.*^  Colodocus,  hermit  and  bishop,  having  refused 
to  give  up  a  stag  which  had  taken  refuge  in  his  hermitage 
to  the  noble  who  pursued  it,  the  furious  hunter  took  away 
seven  oxen  and  a  cow  which  the  solitary  and  his  disciples 
used  in  their  labours.  The  next  morning  eight  stags  came 
out  of  the  wood,  and  offered  themselves  to  the  yoke  to  re- 
place the  cattle  carried  off  from  him  who  had  saved  the  life 
of  their  companion.^ 

The  legend  of  St.  Leonor  follows,  one  of  the  finest  pearls 
from  the  precious  casket  of  Celtic  tradition.  Leonor  was 
one  of  those  monk-bishops  who  came  from  the  British  Islands 
in  the  sixth  century,  like  Samson,  Maglorius,  and  Brieuc, 
to  evangelise  the  Celts  of  Armorica.  Having  established 
himself  in  a  desert  position,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rauce, 
where  he  and  his  sixty  disciples  could  live  only  on  the 
produce  of  the  chase  and  fisheries,  he  saw  one  day,  when 
praying,  a  little  white  bird  settle  at  his  feet,  which  carried 
in  its  beak  an  ear  of  corn.  "  There  was,  then,  upon  this 
wild  waste  some  spot  where  corn  could  grow,  where  even 
some  ears  of  corn  were  growing."  The  saint  thanked  God, 
and  directed  one  of  his  monks  to  follow  the  bird,  who  led 
him  to  a  glade  in  the  neighbouring  forest,  where  some 
plants  of  wheat  had  been  preserved  by  resowing  them- 
selves— the    last    remnant,   perhaps,   of    a    rich    cultivation 

^  "In  vasti  roboris  caudicem,  ad  caveffi  similitudinem  vacuatum,  com- 
pingunt." — BoLLAND.,  t.  i.  Maii,  p.  io6. 

2  La  Villemakque,  op.  cit,  p.  156. 

3  Albert  le  Grand,  Vie  de  St.  Ke  ou  Kenan,  surnomme  Colodoc,  p.  677. 
VOL.  XL  ^ 


226  THE    MONKS   UNDER 

which  had  disappeared  from  these  regions  with  the  inhabi- 
tants who  brought  it  there.  At  this  news  the  saint  intoned 
the  Te  Detim ;  and  the  next  morning,  at  break  of  day, 
having  first  sung  matins,  all  the  community  took  the  road, 
with  Leonor  at  their  head,  towards  the  forest,  to  cut  it 
down.  This  work  lasted  long :  the  monks,  overcome  by 
fatigue,  entreated  their  father  to  abandon  that  overwhelm- 
ing task,  and  to  seek  other  soil  less  hard  to  labour.  He 
refused  to  listen  to  them,  telling  them  it  was  the  devil  who 
sent  to  them  that  temptation  to  idleness.  But  it  was  still 
worse  when,  the  forest  cut  down,  the  cleared  soil  had  to  be 
cultivated.  Then  the  monks  resolved  to  leave  their  leader 
there,  and  fly  during  the  night.  But  they  were  reassured 
and  consoled  by  seeing  twelve  noble  stags  coming  of  them- 
selves to  be  yoked  to  the  ploughs,  like  so  many  pairs  of 
oxen.  After  having  ploughed  all  day,  when  they  were 
loosed  in  the  evening,  they  returned  to  their  lair  in  the 
depth  of  the  wood,  but  only  to  return  on  the  morning  of 
the  next  day.  This  lasted  for  five  weeks  and  three  days, 
until  the  new  fields  were  prepared  to  yield  an  abundant 
harvest.  After  which  the  twelve  stags  disappeared,  carrying 
with  them  the  blessing  of  the  bishop  emigrant.^ 

The  Bollandists,  with  their  habitual  prudence,  take  care 
to  make  a  protest  of  their  incredulity  with  respect  to  these 
travesties  of  historic  truth.^  An  ingenious  and  learned  man 
of  our  own  times  has  pointed  out  their  true  and  legitimate 
origin.  According  to  him,  after  the  gradual  disappearance 
of  the  Gallo- Roman  population,  the  oxen,  horses,  and  dogs  had 
returned  to  a  savage  state,  and  it  was  in  the  forests  that  the 
British  missionaries  had  to  seek  these  animals  to  employ  them 

1  "Ecce  unus  passer  candidissimus  spicam  frumenti  in  ore  tenens  .  .  . 
Coeperunt  lassi  deficere.  .  .  .  Pater,  oramus  te  ut  de  loco  isto  recedas. 

.  .  Fessi  prae  nimio  labore.  .  .  .  Duodecim  grandissimos  cervos.  .  .  . 
Dei  virtute  domesticos.  .  .  .  Benedicens  dixit :  Ite  in  pace.  .  .  .  Densis- 
simas  sylvas  expetunt."— Bolland.,  t.  i.  Jul.,  pp.  121,  125.  Compare  La 
BORDEKIE,  Biscours  sur  les  Saints  Bretons. 

2  Comment.  Prsev.,  No.  9. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  227 

anew  for  domestic  uses.  The  miracle  consisted  in  restoring  to 
man  the  empire  and  use  of  the  creatures  which  God  has  given 
him  for  instruments.  This  redomestication  of  animals  which 
had  relapsed  into  a  savage  condition,  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing episodes  in  the  civilising  mission  of  the  ancient  cenobites.^ 

However,  their  whole  existence  in  the  forests  was  a  series 
of  painful  and  persevering  labours,  of  which  posterity  and 
the  neighbouring  populations  were  to  reap  the  benefit.  The 
mere  clearance  of  the  forests,  undertaken  successively  in  all 
quarters  of  Gaul,  and  pursued  with  unwearied  constancy  by 
the  spade  and  axe  of  the  monk,  was  of  the  greatest  service 
to  future  generations.  The  destruction  of  the  woods,  which 
has  now  become  alarming,  and  even  in  some  cases  a  real 
calamity,  was  then  the  first  of  necessities.  It  was,  besides, 
carried  on  with  prudence  and  moderation.  Ages  passed 
before  the  scarcity  of  wood  was  felt,  even  in  the  sad  southern 
provinces  from  which  woodland  growth  seems  to  have  dis- 
appeared for  ever ;  and  during  these  ages  the  monks  con- 
tinued without  intermission  to  cut  down  the  great  masses  of 
forest — to  pierce  them,  to  divide  them,  to  open  them  up,  and 
even  to  make  great  clearings  here  and  there,  which  con- 
tinually increased,  and  were  put  into  regular  cultivation. 
They  carried  labour,  fertility,  human  strength  and  intelli- 
gence into  those  solitudes  which  till  then  had  been  abandoned 
to  wild  beasts,  and  to  the  disorder  of  spontaneous  vegetation. 
They  devoted  their  entire  life  to  transforming  into  rich 
pastures,  and  fields  carefully  sown  and  ploughed,  a  soil  which 
was  bristling  with  woods  and  thickets. 

It  was  not  a  pleasant,  short,  or  easy  task :  to  accomplish 
it,  all  the  energy  of  wills  freely  submitted  to  faith,  all  the 
perseverance  produced  by  the  spirit  of  association,  joined  to 
a  severe  discipline,  was  needed.  This  persevering  energy 
never  failed  them.  Nowhere  did  they  draw  back,  or 
restore  voluntarily  to  the  desert  that  which  they  had  once 
undertaken  to  reclaim.  On  the  contrary,  we  see  them 
1  La  Boederie,  op.  cit. 


22  8  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

reach  the  extreme  limit  of  human  power  in  their  field  labours 
and  the  standing-ground  they  gained ;  disputing  with  the 
ice,  the  sand,  and  the  rocks,  the  last  fragments  of  soil  that 
could  be  cultivated ;  installing  themselves  sometimes  in 
marshes,  up  to  that  time  supposed  inaccessible  ;  sometimes 
among  fir-woods  laden  with  hoar-frost  the  whole  year  through. 
Sometimes  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  fire  as  the 
means  of  opening  a  road  through  the  wood,  and  getting  rid 
of  the  old  trunks  which  would  have  rendered  all  cultivation 
impossible.  But  most  generally  it  was  spade  in  hand  that 
they  went  before  to  clear  a  space  of  soil  sufficient  to  be  sown 
or  to  become  a  meadow.  They  began  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  the  primitive  cell,^  generally  placed  near 
a  water-course,  which  helped  in  the  formation  of  meadows. 
By  degrees  the  clearing  extended  further,  and  even  into  the 
thickest  shades.  Great  oaks  fell,  to  be  replaced  by  harvests. 
These  monks,  most  of  whom  had  studied  literature,  were 
doubtless  reminded  then  of  the  fine  verses  of  Lucan — 

"  Tunc  omnia  late 
Procumbunt  nemora  et  spoliantur  robore  silvse  .  .  . 
Sed  fortes  tremuere  manus,  motique  verenda 
Maj  estate  loci  .  .  . 

Procumbunt  orni,  nodosa  impellitur  ilex  .  .  . 
Tunc  primum  posuere  comas,  et  fronde  carentes 
Admisere  diem,  propulsaque  robore  denso 
Sustinuit  se  silva  cadens."  ^ 

The  humble  prose  of  our  monastic  annals  reproduces  this 
picture  a  hundred  times  in  Latin  less  pure  and  less  magnifi- 
cent, but  which  has,  nevertheless,  the  powerful  charm  of 
reality  and  simplicity.  When  St.  Brieuc  and  his  eighty 
monks  from  Great  Britain  landed  in  Armorica,  and  marked 
the  site  on  which  the  town  which  afterwards  bore  his  name 
was   erected,    they   proceeded,    like   the    soldiers  of  O^sar, 

1  "In  medio  vastse  eremi  atque  condensse.  .  .  .  Cum  monachis  suis 
silvam  succidere  .  .  .  certabat  ut  planitiem  parare  aliquam  posset  aptam 
jaciendis  seminibus." — Vita  S.  Lauiiom.,  c.  8,  lo, 

-  Pharsalia,  iii.  394-445. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  229 

into  the  forests  sacred  to  the  Druids.  They  surveyed  the 
ancient  woods  at  first  with  curiosity,  says  the  chronicle ; 
they  searched  on  all  sides  through  these  immemorial  shades. 
They  reached  at  last  a  valley  branching  out  to  either  hand, 
the  sides  of  which  were  everywhere  clothed  with  fresh 
foliage,  and  divided  by  a  transparent  stream.  Immediately 
they  all  set  to  work  :  they  overthrew  the  great  trees,  they 
rooted  out  the  copse,  they  cut  down  the  brushwood  and 
undergrowth  ;  in  a  short  time  they  had  converted  the  im- 
penetrable thicket  into  an  open  plain.  This  done,  they  had 
recourse  to  the  spade  and  hoe ;  they  dug  and  weeded  the 
soil,  and  wrought  it  with  minute  care,  thus  putting  it  into 
a  condition  to  produce  abundant  harvests. 

Frequently  they  replaced  the  forest  trees  with  fruit-trees; 
like  that  Telio,  a  British  monk,  who  planted  with  his  own 
hands,  aided  by  St.  Samson,  an  immense  orchard,  or,  as  the 
legend  says,  a  true  forest  of  fruit-trees,  three  miles  in  extent, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dol.^  To  him  is  attributed  the 
introduction  of  the  apple-tree  into  Armorica,  where  cider 
continues  the  national  beverage.  Others  planted  vines  in  a 
favourable  exposure,  and  succeeded  in  acclimatising  it  in 
those  northern  districts  of  Gaul  afterwards  known  as  Brit- 
tany, Normandy,  and  Picardy,  where  the  inhabitants  have 
not  succeeded  in  preserving  it.^     They  also  gave  particular 

1  "  Illustrantibus  illis  arboreta  maxima  curiosius,  annosaque  fruteta 
cixcumquaque  perscrutantibus  in  vallem  binam  deveniunt.  .  .  .  Vallem 
nemorum  amoenitate  confertam  perambulans,  fontem  lucidissimum,  aquis 
prospicuum.  .  .  .  Accinguntur  omnes  operi,  diruunt  arbores,  succidunt 
fruteta,  avellunt  vepres  spinarumque  congeriem,  silvamque  densissimam 
in  brevi  reducunt  in  planitiem.  .  .  .  Vellebant  plerumqueglebasligonibus: 
exolebatur  deinceps  humus  sarculis,  sulcisque  minutissime  exaratis." — Vide 
de  S.  Brieuc,  by  the  canon  of  La  Devison,  1627,  quoted  by  La  Borderie. 

2  "  Magnum  nemus."  This  orchard  still  existed  in  the  twelfth  century, 
under  the  name  of  Arboretum  Teliavi  et  Sansonis. — La  Borderie,  ojp.  cit., 

P-  39- 

3  "Parva  vitis  hie  inventa  atque  exculta." — Vita  S.  Karilefi,  c.  16. 
"  Quo  tempore  a  climate  meridiano  distantem  a  pr^fato  ccenobio  passus 
fere  quingentos.  .  .  .  B.  Wandresigilus  vineam  plantare  et  excolere 
ccepit." — Vita  S.  Ansperti,  c.  11. 


2  30  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

attention  to  the  care  of  bees,  as  has  been  already  testified 
by  the  agreement  between  the  abbot  of  Dol  and  the  Bishop 
of  Paris/  No  trade  seemed  too  hard  for  them,  those  of  the 
carpenter  and  mason  being  as  readily  adopted  as  those  of 
the  wood-cutter  and  gardener.  One  ground,  in  the  mill 
which  he  had  himself  made,  the  wheat  which  he  was  to 
eat ;  ^  another  hollowed  out  a  reservoir  of  stone  round  the 
fountain  which  he  had  discovered,  or  which  had  sprung  up 
in  answer  to  his  prayers,  that  others  might  enjoy  it  after 
him ;  ^  and  grateful  posterity  has  taken  care  not  to  forget 
either  the  benefit  or  the  benefactor. 

All  these  men  had  the  text  of  the  Apostle  always  on  their 
lips,  "  If  any  will  not  work,  neither  let  him  eat ;  "  and  that 
of  the  psalmist,  "  Thou  shalt  eat  the  labour  of  thine  hands." 
These  texts  are  perpetually  appealed  to  in  their  legends, 
and  justly,  for  they  are  an  epitome  of  their  doctrine 
and  life. 

The  influence  of  such  labours  and  examples  rapidly  made 
itself  felt  upon  the  rustic  populations  who  lived  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  this  new  cultivation,  or  who  followed  the 
solitaries  into  the  forest  to  see  their  works,  and  to  find  in 
them  guides  and  protectors.  From  admiration  the  peasants 
gladly  passed  to  imitation.  Often  they  became  the  voluntary 
coadjutors  of  the  monks,  and,  without  embracing  monastic 
life,  aided  them  to  clear  the  ground  and  build  their  dwell- 
ings.^ Sometimes  the  brigands  themselves,  who  at  first 
had  sought  their  lives,  or  attempted  to  interdict  them  from 
entering  the  forest,  ended  by  becoming  agriculturists  after 

1  See  above,  p.  156.  Compare  Vita  S.  Pauli,  ap.  BOLLAND.,  t.  ii.  Mart., 
p.  121  ;   Vita  S.  Amati,  ap.  ACT.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii. 

2  Vita  ,S.  Gildasii,  ap.  LA  Borderie,  loc.  cit. 

2  "  Quern  fontem  .  .  .  manu  sua,  ut  aque  retentor  esset,  terrestri  cir- 
cumdedit  aadificio,  et  hactenus  ob  amorem  illius  a  devotis  non  ignobili 
tegitur  operculo." — Vita  S.  Karilefi,  c.  9. 

■*  "  Circa  illius  eremi  .  .  .  quidam  hominum  rusticali  opere  tenuem 
sustentantes  vitam  habitabant.  .  .  .  Dei  famulum  s^pius  invisere  curabant 
.  .  .  quo  et  ^dificandi  monasterii  adjutores  forent." — Ibid.,  c.  26. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  23  I 

their  example.^  The  rapid  increase  of  rural  population  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  monastic  establishments  is  thus  explained, 
and  also  the  immense  amount  of  labour  which  the  cenobites 
could  undertake,  the  results  of  which  exist  and  astonish  us 
still. 

The  richest  districts  of  France  trace  their  prosperity  to 
this  origin :  witness,  amongst  a  thousand  other  places,  that 
portion  of  La  Brie  between  Meaux  and  Jouarre,  once  covered 
by  a  vast  forest,  the  first  inhabitant  of  which  was  the  Irish 
monk  Fiacre,  whose  name  still  continues  popular,  and  whom 
our  gardeners  honour  as  their  patron  saint,  probably  with- 
out knowing  anything  whatever  of  his  history.  He  had 
obtained  from  the  Bishop  of  Meaux,  who  was  the  holder  of 
this  forest,  permission  to  cut  the  wood  which  covered  so 
much  soil  as  he  could  surround  with  a  ditch  by  one  day's 
labour,  in  order  to  make  a  garden  of  it,  and  cultivate  roots 
for  poor  travellers.  Long  after,  the  peasants  of  the  environs 
showed  this  ditch,  six  times  longer  than  was  expected,  and 
told  how  the  Irish  saint  had  taken  his  stick  and  traced  a 
line  upon  the  soil  which  sank  into  a  ditch  under  the  point, 
while  the  great  forest  trees  fell  right  and  left,  as  if  to  save 
him  the  trouble  of  cutting  them  down.^  Thus  was  inter- 
preted the  profound  impression  produced  by  the  labours  of 
these  monastic  pioneers  upon  the  minds  of  the  people. 

The  same  occurrence  is  attributed  to  St.  Goeznou,  a 
British  emigrant,  and  Bishop  of  Leon,  who,  having  received 
from  a  count  of  the  country  the  gift  "  of  as  much  land  to 
build  a  monastery  as  he  could  enclose  with  ditches  in  one 
day,  took  a  fork,  and,  trailing  it  along  the  earth,  walked  for 
nearly  two  hours  of  Brittany,  forming  a  square  ;  and  as  he 
trailed  this  fork,  the  earth  divided  one  part  from  the  other, 
and  formed  a  great  ditch,  separating  the  lands  given  from 

1  "Multi  ejusdem  silvje  latrones  .  .  .  aut  fiebant  monachi  .  .  .  aut 
deserentes  latrocinia  efficiebantur  cultores  agri." — Vita  S.  Ebrulfi,  c.  11. 

2  "  Tractu  baculi  terra  dehiscens  patebat,  et  nemus  hinc  et  inde  funditus 
corruebat.  .  .  .  Fossata  vero  usque  in  hodiernum  diem  ab  incolis  demon- 
strantur."— Mabill.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  573. 


23  2  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

those  of  the  giver,  which  enclosure  has  always  been  held  in 
such  reverence  that  of  old  it  served  as  an  asylum  and  place 
of  refuge  to  malefactors."  ^ 

In  addition  to  these  legends,  born  of  the  popular  imagi- 
nation and  the  grateful  memory  of  ancient  generations,  it  is 
pleasant  to  appeal  to  more  certain  witnesses  by  following 
upon  our  modern  maps  the  traces  of  monastic  labour  through 
the  forests  of  ancient  France,  and  by  observing  a  multi- 
tude of  localities,  the  mei-e  names  of  which  indicate  wooded 
districts  evidently  transformed  into  fields  and  plains  by  the 
monks." 

Is  it  the  authentic  narrative  of  a  real  incident  that  we 
should  see  in  that  chapter  of  the  life  of  the  abbot  Karilef, 
where  it  is  said  that  this  saint,  moving  with  his  spade  the 
ground  he  dug  round  his  cell  in  the  forest  of  Perche,  dis- 
covered a  treasure  there,  over  which  he  rejoiced  ardently 
with  his  brethren,  because  it  gave  him  the  means  at  once 
of  helping  exiles  and  pilgrims,  and  of  rewarding  the  poor 
peasants  who  had  helped  to  build  his  oratory  ?  Or  is  it  not 
rather  the  symbolical  form  in  which  the  admiration  of  the 
people  at  the  sight  of  so  many  works,  undertaken  on  such 
feeble  resources,  followed  by  results  so  excellent,  and  elevated 
by  a  charity  so  generous,  has  found  expression  ?  It  is 
added  that  the  abbot  and  his  disciples  laboured  with  the 
spade  because  they  had  no  means  of  working  the  plough.^ 

But  the  plough  was  not  long  wanting  to  them  anywhere. 
It  was  natural  that  it  should  be  the  principal  instrument  of 
monastic  culture;  and  it  may  be  said,  without  exaggeration, 

1  Albert  le  Grand,  p.  660,  after  the  ancient  Breviary  of  Leon. 

2  See  some  valuable  indications  given,  from  the  map  of  Cassini  and  a 
multitude  of  ancient  and  contemporary  authors,  by  M.  Alfred  Maury,  in 
chap.  V.  of  his  able  and  curious  book,  Les  Forets  de  la  France. 

3  "  Cum  quadam  die  coactis  fratribus  .  .  .  agriculturse  in  prsedio  jam 
dicto  insisteret,  ac  rostro  terram  verteret  (deerat  namque  illis  arandi  copia) 
.  .  .  terrse  glebam  saculo  detrahens,  thesaurum  latentem  detexit.  En,  op- 
timi  commilitones,  qualiter  nostri  misericordis  Creatoris  donis  suis  nostram 
exiguitatem  nobilitat."—  Vita  S.  KariUfi,  c.  22.  This  is  the  last  time  we 
shall  quote  this  narrative,  so  complete  and  curious. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  233 

that  it  formed,  along  with  the  cross  of  the  Redeemer,  the 
ensign  and  emblazonry  of  the  entire  history  of  the  monks 
during  these  early  ages.  Cruce  et  aratro  !  In  it  is  summed 
up  the  life  of  one  of  the  great  monks  of  the  sixth  century, 
of  whom  we  have  yet  to  speak.  Theodulph,  born  in  Aqui- 
taine,  had  issued  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors  illustrious  for 
nobility  as  well  as  for  piety.  Having  become  a  monk  at  St. 
Thierry,  near  Reims,  he  was  specially  desirous  to  be  employed 
in  the  agricultural  labours  of  the  monastery  :  two  oxen  were 
intrusted  to  him,  whom  he  led  in  the  plough  for  twenty-two 
years.  With  this  yoke  he  did  as  much  work  as  other  teams 
accomplished  with  two,  three,  or  even  four  of  the  brethren. 
There  might  be  some  who  doubted  the  good  sense  of  a  man 
so  foolish  as  to  employ  his  life  in  such  labours,  and  to  brave 
all  the  intemperance  of  the  seasons  like  a  simple  peasant, 
instead  of  living  like  his  ancestors  on  the  fruit  of  his  sub- 
jects' labour.  But  all  admired  such  a  labourer,  still  more 
unwearied  than  his  oxen  ;  for  while  they  rested  he  replaced 
the  plough  by  the  mattock,  the  harrow,  or  the  spade  ;  and 
when  he  returned  to  the  monastery  after  days  so  well 
occupied  he  was  always  first  in  the  services  and  psalmody 
of  the  night.  After  these  twenty-two  years  of  ploughing  he 
was  elected  abbot  of  his  community.  Then  the  inhabitants 
of  the  nearest  village  took  his  plough,  and  hung  it  up  in 
their  church  as  a  relic.  It  was  so,  in  fact ;  a  noble  and 
holy  relic  of  one  of  those  lives  of  perpetual  labour  and  super- 
human virtue,  whose  example  has  happily  exercised  a  more 
fruitful  and  lasting  influence  than  that  of  the  proudest  con- 
querors. It  seems  to  me  that  we  should  all  contemplate 
with  emotion,  if  it  still  existed,  that  monk's  plough,  doubly 
sacred,  by  religion  and  by  labour,  by  history  and  by  virtue. 
For  myself,  I  feel  that  I  should  kiss  it  as  willingly  as  the 
sword  of  Charlemagne  or  the  pen  of  Bossuet. 

The  same  peasants  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Reims  also 
admired  in  their  simplicity  a  great  old  tree  :  it  was  said  to 
have  grown  from  the  goad  which  the  abbot  Theodulph  used 


234  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

to  prick  on  his  oxen,  and  whicli  he  had  one  day  stuck  into 
the  ground,  when,  leading  them  from  the  monastery,  he 
paused  on  the  roadside  to  mend  his  damaged  plough.^ 

When  he  became  abbot,  Theodulph  redoubled  his  activity 
in  his  devotion  to  all  the  duties  of  his  charge,  and  to  those 
which  he  imposed  upon  himself  in  addition,  in  building  a 
new  church  in  honour  of  St.  Hilary.  He  was  specially 
assiduous  in  the  services  of  the  monastery,  and  exacted  the 
same  diligence  from  all  the  monks.  The  latter  were  not  all 
animated  by  a  zeal  so  impatient  of  repose.  As  both  abbot 
and  monks  cherished  the  recollections  of  classic  antiquity, 
one  of  the  Religious  once  brought  forward  to  him  this  verse 
of  Horace : — 

"  Quod  caret  alterna  requie  durabile  non  est ;  " 

to  whom  Theodulph  answered  that  it  was  very  well  for 
pagans,  too  careful  of  their  own  comfort,  but  that  as  for  him, 
he  preferred  that  other,  and  equally  classic  text : — 

"  Nil  sine  magno 
Vita  labore  dedit  mortalibiis."  ^ 

Labour  and  prayer  formed  the  double  sphere  in  which 
the  existence  of  the  monastic  colonisers  always  flowed,  and 
the  double  end  of  their  long  and  unwearied  efforts.  But  they 
certainly  did  not  think    it   sufficient  to   initiate  the  rustic 

^  "Effulsit  prosapia  sua  .  .  .  aulicoriim  optimatum  generositate  .  .  . 
honestati  majorum  suorum  jam  uniebatur  .  .  .  religionis  velut  ex  linear! 
successione.  .  .  .  Juvencos  binos,  cum  quibus  ipsi  agricultural  insudavit 
bis  undecim  annos  .  .  .  pro  variis  passionibus  aeris  at  commotionibus 
temporum.  .  .  .  Infatigabilis  cum  infatigabilibus.  .  .  .  Ut  cum  paulum 
aratro  indulgeret,  rostro  manuum  insisteret.  .  .  .  Mundus  ista  bominis 
non  sani  capitis  esse  judicabat,  cum  bis  potius  agricolis  dominari  ille  ex 
progenitorum  usu  debuisset.  .  .  .  Inter  ccenobium  et  villam  Melfigiam  .  .  . 
stimulo  spineo  terrse  infixio  .  .  .  agricola  sanctus  aratri  correctione  oppor- 
tune incubuit." — Bolland.,  t.  1.  Mail,  p.  97. 

"  "  Erat  namque  quietis  impatiens  .  .  .  duplicabat  cursum  laboris  sui  et 
officii.  .  .  .  Illius  notissimi  auctoris  dictum  .  .  .  sibi  parcentium  etbni- 
corum  remissioni." — Ibid. 


THE   FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  235 

population  of  Frankish  Gaul  in  the  laborious  habits  and 
best  processes  of  agriculture.  They  had  still  more  at  heart 
the  cultivation  of  so  many  souls  infinitely  precious  in  the 
eyes  of  God  and  of  the  servants  of  God.  By  their  example 
and  exhortations,  by  their  vigilant  charity,  and  at  the  same 
time  by  their  oral  instruction,  they  dug  in  those  rude  hearts 
the  deep  furrows  where  they  sowed  abundantly  the  seeds  of 
virtue  and  eternal  life.  To  their  example,  and  above  all  to 
their  influence,  the  beneficent  solicitude  of  the  provincial 
Councils  of  Gaul  for  the  spiritual  instruction  of  the  rural 
population  must  be  attributed.  "  The  priests,"  says  the 
Council  of  Eouen,  "  must  warn  their  parishioners  that  they 
ought  to  permit  or  cause  their  neatherds,  swineherds,  and 
other  herdsmen,  their  ploughmen,  and  those  who  are  con- 
tinually in  the  fields  or  woods,  and  live  there  like  the  animals, 
to  attend  mass,  on  Sundays  and  holidays  at  least.  Those  who 
neglect  this  shall  have  to  answer  for  their  souls,  and  shall 
have  to  render  a  severe  account.  For  the  Lord  when  He 
came  upon  the  earth  did  not  choose  orators  or  nobles  for  His 
disciples,  but  fishers  and  men  of  the  humblest  class ;  and  it 
was  not  to  high  intelligences,  but  to  the  poor  shepherds,  that 
the  angel  announced  in  the  first  place  the  nativity  of  our 
Lord."'^ 

But  how  could  they  have  supplied  the  spiritual  necessities 
of  all  that  population  of  shepherds  and  labourers,  not  nume- 
rous, and  spread  over  immense  regions  not  more  than  half 
inhabited,  if  the  monks  had  not  come  to  second  and  succeed 
the  secular  clergy,  establishing  among  them  at  a  thousand 

1  "  Admonere  debent  sacerdotes  plebes  subditas  sibi  ut  huhulcos  atque 
porcarios,  vel  alios  pastores,  vel  aratores,  qui  in  agris  assidue  commorantur, 
vel  in  silvis,  et  ideo  velut  more  pecudum  vivunt  in  dominicis  et  in  aliis  festis 
diebus  saltern  vel  ad  missam  faciant  vel  permittant  venire  :  nam  et  hos 
Christus  pretioso  suo  sanguine  redemit.  Quod  si  neglexerint,  pro  ani- 
mabus  eorum  obsque  dubio  rationem  se  reddituros  sciant.  Siquidem 
Dominus  veniens  in  hunc  mundum  non  elegit  oratores  atque  nobiliores 
quosque,  sed  piscatores  atque  idiotas  sibi  discipulos  ascivit.  .  .  .  Et  salva 
altiore  intelligentia,  nativitas  nostri  Redemptoris  primo  omnium  pastoribus 
ab  angelo  nunciatur."— Coletti  Concilia,  t.  vii.  p.  406. 


236  THE    MONKS    UNDER 

different  points,  and  precisely  in  the  quarters  least  accessible, 
their  cells  and  oratories  ?  These  oratories  in  time  became 
churches ;  the  cottages  of  the  peasants  gathered  round  them  ; 
the  latter  were  henceforth  sure  of  sharing  in  all  the  benefits 
of  spiritual  paternity,  conferred  upon  them  by  men  often 
issuing  from  the  noblest  and  most  powerful  races  among  the 
masters  and  conquerors  of  the  country,  who  voluntarily  shared 
their  fatigues  and  privations,  who  led  a  life  as  hard  as,  and 
even  harder  than,  theirs,  and  who  asked  of  them,  in  exchange 
for  such  services  and  examples,  only  that  they  should  join 
them  in  praising  the  Lord. 

Our  solitaries,  thus  becoming,  often  against  their  will,  the 
fathers  and  leaders  of  a  numerous  progeny,  saw  themselves 
surrounded  by  a  double  family,  that  of  their  disciples  and 
that  of  their  dependants,  the  monastic  and  the  rustic  com- 
munity, both  united  by  faith,  labour,  and  common  prayer. 
From  the  midst  of  forests  so  long  unapproachable,  and  deserts 
henceforward  repeopled,  arose  everywhere  the  hymn  of  joy, 
gratitude,  and  adoration.  The  prophecy  of  Isaiah  was  verified 
under  their  very  eyes  for  them  and  by  them  : — "  Ye  shall  go 
out  with  joy,  and  be  led  forth  with  peace  :  the  mountains  and 
the  hills  shall  break  forth  before  you  into  singing,  and  all  the 
trees  of  the  field  shall  clap  their  hands.  Instead  of  the  thorn 
shall  come  up  the  fir-tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall  come 
up  the  myrtle-tree :  and  it  shall  be  to  the  Lord  for  a  name, 
for  an  everlasting  sign  that  shall  not  be  cut  off."  ^ 

And  are  not  we  tempted  sometimes  to  give  ear  and  listen 
whether  some  faint  echo  of  that  delightful  harmony  does  not 
float  across  the  ocean  of  time  ?  Certainly  earth  has  never 
raised  to  heaven  a  sweeter  concert  than  that  of  so  many 
pure  and  pious  voices  full  of  faith  and  enthusiasm,  rising 
from  the  glades  of  the  ancient  forests,  from  the  sides  of 
rocks,  and  from  the  banks  of  waterfalls  or  torrents,  to  cele- 
brate their  new-born  happiness,  like  the  birds  under  the 
leaves,  or  like  our  dear  little  children  in  their  charming 

^  Isaiah  Iv.  12,  i^. 


THE    FIRST    MEROVINGIANS  237 

lispings,  when  they  greet  with  joyful  and  innocent  confidence 
the  dawn  of  a  day  in  which  they  foresee  neither  storms  nor 
decline. 

The  Church  has  known  days  more  resplendent  and  more 
solemn,  days  better  calculated  to  raise  the  admiration  of 
sages,  the  fervour  of  pious  souls,  and  the  unshaken  confi- 
dence of  her  children  ;  but  I  know  not  if  she  has  ever 
breathed  forth  a  charm  more  touching  and  pure  than  in  the 
spring-time  of  monastic  life. 

In  that  Gaul  which  had  borne  for  five  centuries  the  igno- 
minious yoke  of  the  Caesars,  which  had  groaned  under  Bar- 
barian invasions,  and  where  everything  still  breathed  blood, 
fire,  and  carnage.  Christian  virtue,  watered  by  the  spirit  of 
penitence  and  sacrifice,  began  to  bud  everywhere.  Every- 
where faith  seemed  to  blossom  like  flowers  after  the  winter ; 
everywhere  moral  life  revived  and  budded  like  the  verdure 
of  the  woods  ;  everywhere  under  the  ancient  arches  of  the 
Druidical  forests  was  celebrated  the  fresh  betrothal  of  the 
Church  with  the  Frankish  people. 


BOOK  VII 

ST.  COLUMBANUS.—THE  IRISH  IN  GAUL  AND 
THE  COLONIES  OF  LUXEUIL 

SUMMARY 

Ireland,  converted  by  two  slaves,  becomes  Christian  without  having 
been  Roman.— Legend  of  St.  Patrick  :  the  bards  and  the  slaves ;  St. 
Bridget ;  the  light  of  Kildare. — The  Irish  monasteries  :  Bangor  :  St.  Luan. 
— The  Irish  missionaries. — Bikth  and  education  op  St.  Columbanus; 
his  mission  in  Gaul ;  his  sojourn  at  Annergray  :  the  wolves  and  the  Sueve 
brigands. — He  settles  at  Luxeuil ;  state  of  Sequania  :  great  influx  of  dis- 
ciples ;  Laus  perennis. — Episcopal  opposition  :  haughty  letter  of  Colum- 
banus to  a  council.— His  struggle  with  Brunehault  and  Thierry 
II. :  St.  Martin  of  Autun  founded  by  Brunehault :  first  expulsion  of 
Columbanus ;  the  young  Agilus ;  Columbanus  at  Besan^on ;  return  to 
Luxeuil. — He  is  again  expelled  :  his  voyage  on  the  Loire  ;  arrival  at 
Nantes  ;  letter  to  the  monks  at  Luxeuil. — He  goes  to  Clotaire  II.,  king  of 
Neustria,  and  to  Theodebert  II.,  king  of  Austrasia. — His  mission  to  the 
Alamans  ;  St.  Gall ;  the  dialogue  of  the  demons  on  the  lake. — He  abandons 
the  conversion  of  the  Sclaves,  and  returns  to  Theodebert :  defeat  and 
death  of  this  king.— Columbanus  crosses  the  Alps  and  passes  into  Lom- 
bardy. — He  founds  Bobbio  ;  his  poems  ;  his  remonstrances  with  Pope 
Boniface  IV.— Clotaire  II.  recalls  him  to  Gaul :  he  refuses  and  dies. — He 
was  neither  the  enemy  of  kings  nor  of  popes. — Rule  of  Columbanus  : 
the  Penitential. 

Disciples  op  Columbanus  in  Italy  and  Helvetia.— His  successors  at 
Bobbio  :  Attalus  and  Bertulph ;  the  Arian  Ariowald  and  the  monk  Blidulf. 
— Abbey  of  Dissentis  in  Rhetia :  St.  Sigisbert.— St.  Gall  separates  from 
Columbanus  ;  origin  of  the  abbey  called  by  his  name  ;  the  demons  again. 
— Princess  Frideburga  and  her  betrothed. — Gall  is  reconciled  to  Colum- 
banus and  dies. 

Influence,  preponderance,  and  prosperity  op  Luxeuil  under  St. 
Eustace,  first  successor  of  Columbanus. — Luxeuil  becomes  the  monastic 
capital  of  Gaul  and  the  first  school  of  Christianity  :  bishops  and  saints 
issue  from  Luxeuil:  Hermenfried  of  Verdun. — Schism  of  Agrestin  subdued 


240  SUMMARY 

at  the  Council  of  Macon  ;  the  Irish  tonsure  ;  Note  on  Bishop  Faron  and 
his  wife. — The  Benedictine  rule  adopted  in  conjunction  with  the  institu- 
tion of  Luxeuil. — The  double  consulate. — St.  Walbert,  third  abbot  of 
Luxeuil. — Exemption  accorded  by  Pope  John  IV. 

Colonies  op  Luxeuil  in  the  two  Burgundies  ;  St.  Desle  at  Lure  and 
Clotaire  II. — The  ducal  family  of  St.  Donatus :  Romainmoutier  re-estab- 
lished ;  the  nuns  of  Jussamontier  ;  Beze  ;  Bregille. — The  abbot  Hermenfried 
at  Cusance :  he  kisses  the  hands  of  the  husbandmen. 

Colonies  of  Luxeuil  in  Rauracia:  St.  Ursanne;  St.  Germain  of  Grandval, 
first  martyr  of  the  Columbanic  institution. 

Colonies  of  Luxeuil  in  Neustria  :  St.  Wandregisil  at  Fontenelle :  he 
converted  the  country  of  Caux  :  St.  Philibert  at  Jumieges  ;  commerce  and 
navigation  ;  death  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  saints  of  Jumidges. 

Colonies  of  Luxeuil  in  Brie  and  Champagne  :  St.  Ouen  and  his  brothers ; 
Jouarre. — St.  Agilus  at  Rebais  ;  hospitality  ;  vision  of  the  poor  traveller. 
— Burgundofara  braves  martyrdom  to  be  made  a  nun,  and  when  abbess, 
repels  the  schismatic  Agrestin. — Her  brother  St.  Faron  and  King  Clotaire 
II.  hunting.— St.  Fiacre,  St.  Fursy,  St.  Frobert  at  Moutier-la-Celle,  St. 
Berchaire  at  Hautvillers  and  Montier-en-Der. — St.  Salaberga  at  Laon. 

Colonies  of  Luxeuil  in  Ponthieu  :  the  shepherd  Valery,  gardener  at 
Luxeuil,  founder  of  Leuconiius.— Popular  opposition. — St.  Riquier  at 
Centnle. 

Colonies  of  Luxeuil  among  the  Morins  :  St.  Omer  and  St.  Bertin  at 
Sithiu  ;  change  of  the  name  of  monasteries. 

The  Saints  of  Remiremont  :  Amatus  and  Romaric ;  the  double 
monasteries  ;  Agrestin  at  Remiremont ;  Romaric  and  the  prime  minister 
Grimoald.— St.  Eloysius  and  Solignac. 

Why  was  the  rule  of  St.  Columbanus  rejected  and  replaced  by  that  of 
St.  Benedict  ?  The  Council  of  Autun  acknowledges  only  the  latter.  The 
Council  of  Rome  in  6io  confirmed  it.  It  was  identified  with  the  authority 
of  the  Holy  See,  and  thus  succeeded  in  governing  all. 


BOOK  VII 

ST.    COLUMBANUS 

Ad  has  nostras  Gallicanas  partes  S.  Columbanus  ascendens,  Luxoviense 
construxit  monasterium,  factus  ibi  in  gentem  magnam. — S.  Bbr- 
NAEDI,   Vita  S.  Malach.,  C.  5. 

Si  toUis  libertatem,  tollis  et  dignitatem. — S.  COLUMBANI,  Epist.  ad 
Fratres. 

While  the  missionaries  of  Monte  Cassino  planted  slowly 
and  obscurely  in  the  new  kingdom  of  the  Franks  that  Order, 
the  observance  of  which  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  by  his 
example  and  by  his  disciples,  regulated  and  extended  every- 
where, a  man  had  appeared  in  the  Church  and  in  Gaul 
as  the  type  of  a  distinct  race  and  spirit.  A  monk  and 
monastic  legislator,  like  St.  Benedict,  he  at  one  moment 
threatened  to  eclipse  and  replace  the  Benedictine  institution 
in  the  Catholic  world.     This  was  St.  Columbanus. 

He  came  from  the  north,  as  St.  Maur  had  come  from 
the  south.  He  was  born  in  Ireland :  he  brought  with  him 
a  colony  of  Irish  monks ;  and  his  name  leads  us  back  to 
consider  that  race  and  country  of  which  he  has  been  the 
most  illustrious  representative  among  us. 

Ireland,  that  virgin  island  on  which  proconsul  never  set 
foot,  which  never  knew  either  the  orgies  or  the  exactions  of 
Rome,  was  also  the  only  place  in  the  world  of  which  the 
Gospel  took  possession  without  bloodshed.  It  is  thus  spoken 
of  by  Ozanam  ;  ■^  and  certainly  no  one  has  described  it  better, 
though  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  excessive  admiration 
which  disposes  him  to  exalt  above  measure  the  part  played 


Etudes  Germaniqucs,  t.  ii.  p.  99. 


VOL.  II. 


241 


242  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

by  the  Irish  from  the  sixth  to  the  twelfth  centuries,  attri- 
buting to  them  exclusively  that  impulse  of  diffusion  and 
expansion,  and  that  thirst  for  instructing  and  converting, 
which  characterised  the  entire  Church  and  monastic  order 
during  that  long  and  glorious  period.  The  preponderance 
of  the  Irish  race  in  the  work  of  preaching  and  in  the  con- 
version of  pagan  or  semi-Christian  nations  was  only  tem- 
porary, and  did  not  last  longer  than  the  seventh  century  ; 
but  their  exertions  at  that  time  were  so  undeniable  as  to 
leave  France,  Switzerland,  and  Belgium  under  a  debt  of 
everlasting  gratitude.  This  branch  of  the  great  family  of 
Celtic  nations,  known  under  the  name  of  Hibernians,  Scots, 
or  Gaels,  and  whose  descendants  and  language  have  survived 
to  our  own  days  in  Ireland,  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
in  Wales,  and  in  Lower  Brittany,  had  adopted  the  faith  of 
Christ  with  enthusiasm ;  and,  at  the  moment  when  Celtic 
vitality  seemed  about  to  perish  in  Gaul  and  Great  Britain, 
under  the  double  pressure  of  Roman  decay  and  Germanic 
invasion,  appeared  among  all  the  Christian  races  as  the  one 
most  devoted  to  the  Catholic  faith,  and  most  zealous  for  the 
spread  of  the  Gospel. ^  From  the  moment  that  this  Green 
Erin,  situated  at  the  extremity  of  the  known  world,  had  seen 
the  sun  of  faith  rise  upon  her,  she  had  vowed  herself  to  it 
with  an  ardent  and  tender  devotion  which  became  her  very 
life.  The  course  of  ages  has  not  interrupted  this ;  the  most 
bloody  and  implacable  of  persecutions  has  not  shaken  it; 
the  defection  of  all  northern  Europe  has  not  led  her  astray ; 
and  she  maintains  still,  amid  the  splendours  and  miseries  of 
modern  civilisation  and  Anglo-Saxon  supremacy,  an  inex- 
tinguishable centre  of  faith,  where  survives,  along  with  the 
completest  orthodoxy,  that  admirable  purity  of  manners 
which  no  conqueror  and  no  adversary  has  ever  been  able  to 
dispute,  to  equal,  or  to  diminish. 

^  "  Scottorum  gens  .  .  .  absque  reliquarum  gentium  legibus,  tamen  in 
Christian!  vigoris  dogmate  florens,  omnium  vicinarum  gentium  fide  prse- 
poUet."— Jonas,  Vita  S.  Colomb.,  c.  6,  ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  scec.  II. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  243 

The  ecclesiastical  antiquity  and  hagiography  of  Ireland 
constitute  in  themselves  an  entire  world  of  inquiry.  We 
shall  be  pardoned  for  not  desiring  to  enter  into  their  inter- 
minable and  somewhat  confused  perspectives.'^  It  will  suffice 
us  to  detach  from  this  mass  of  legendary  narratives,  which 
modern  erudition  has  not  yet  been  able  to  clear  away,  as 
much  as  is  indispensable  to  our  subject,  and  will  prove  the 
development  of  the  monastic  principle,  contemporaneous 
with,  but  entirely  independent  of,  the  diffusion  of  cenobitical 
institutions  in  all  the  Roman  empire  and  through  all  the 
Barbarian  races. 

Two  slaves  brought  the  faith  to  Ireland,  and  at  the  same 
time  founded  monastic  life  there.  Such  is  at  least  the 
popular  belief,  confirmed  by  the  most  credible  narratives. 

The  Gallo-Roman  Patrick,  son  of  a  relative  of  the  great 
St.  Martin  of  Tours,  had  been  seized  at  sixteen  by  pirates, 
and  sold  as  a  slave  into  Ireland,  where  he  kept  the  flocks  of 
his  master,  and  where  hunger,  cold,  nakedness,  and  the  piti- 
less severity  of  his  master,  initiated  him  into  all  the  horrors 
of  slavery.  Restored  to  liberty  after  six  years  of  servitude, 
and  returned  to  Gaul,  he  saw  always  in  his  dreams  the 
children  of  the  poor  Irish  pagans  whose  yoke  he  had  known, 
holding  out  to  him  their  little  arms.  His  sleep  and  his 
studies  were  equally  disturbed  by  these  visions.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  he  heard  the  voice  of  these  innocents  asking 
baptism  of  him,  and  crying — "  Dear  Christian  child,  return 
among  us  !  return  to  save  us !  "  ^  After  having  studied  in 
the  great  monastic  sanctuaries  of  Marmoutier  and  Lerins, 
after  having  accompanied  St.  Germain  of  Auxerre  in  the 
mission  undertaken  by  that  great  champion  of  orthodoxy  to 

1  LaniGAN,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland  from  the  First  Introduction  of 
Christianity  to  the  Beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  (Dublin,  1829,  4  vols.), 
may  be  consulted  with  advantage,  though  without  coinciding  in  its  views. 

2  "  Vidi  in  visu  de  nocte  .  .  .  Putabam  .  .  .  audire  vocem  ipsorum  .  .  . 
Rogamus  te,  sancte  puer,  venias  et  adhuc  ambules  inter  nos.  Et  valde 
compunctus  sum  corde,  et  amplius  non  potui  legere,  et  sic  expergefactus 
sum."— Act.  SS.  Bolland.,  t.  ii.  Mart.,  p.  535. 


244  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

root  out  the  Pelagian  heresy  so  dear  to  the  Celtic  races  from 
Great  Britain,  he  went  to  Rome,  obtained  there  a  mission 
from  the  Pope  St.  Celestin,  and  returned  to  Ireland  as  a 
bishop  to  preach  the  faith.  The  kings,  the  chiefs,  the  war- 
like and  impressionable  people  of  Green  Erin  listened  to  him, 
followed  him,  and  testified  towards  him  that  impassioned 
veneration  which  has  become  the  most  popular  tradition  of 
the  Irish,  and  which  thirteen  centuries  had  not  lessened. 
After  thirty-three  years  of  apostleship  he  died,  leaving  Ire- 
land almost  entirely  converted,  and,  moreover,  filled  with 
schools  and  communities  destined  to  become  a  nursery  of 
missionaries  for  the  West. 

Legend  and  history  have  vied  in  taking  possession  of  the 
life  of  St.  Patrick. 

There  is  nothing  in  his  legend  more  poetic  than  the 
meeting  between  the  Gallo-Roman  apostle  and  the  Irish 
bards,  who  formed  a  hereditary  and  sacerdotal  class.  Among 
them  he  found  his  most  faithful  disciples.  Ossian  himself, 
the  blind  Homer  of  Ireland,  allowed  himself  to  be  converted 
by  him,  and  Patrick  listened  in  his  turn  as  he  sang  the  long 
epic  of  Celtic  kings  and  heroes.^  Harmony  was  not  estab- 
lished between  these  two  without  being  preceded  by  some 
storms.  Patrick  threatened  with  hell  the  profane  warriors 
whose  glory  Ossian  vaunted,  and  the  bard  replied  to  the 
apostle,  "  If  thy  God  was  in  hell,  my  heroes  would  draw  him 
from  it."  But  triumphant  truth  made  peace  between  poetry 
and  faith.  The  monasteries  founded  by  Patrick  became  the 
asylum  and  centre  of  Celtic  poetry.  When  once  blessed  and 
transformed,  says  an  old  author,  the  songs  of  the  bards  be- 
came so  sweet  that  the  angels  of  God  leant  down  from  heaven 
to  listen  to  them  ;  ^  and  this  explains  the  reason  why  the 
harp  of  the  bards  has  continued  the  symbol  and  emblazonry 
of  Catholic  Ireland. 

Nothing  is  better  established  in  the  history  of  St.  Patrick, 

1  OzANAM,  ii.  472. 

2  La  Villemarque,  Ligende  Celtique,  p.  109. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  245 

than  his  zeal  to  preserve  the  country  where  he  had  himself 
borne  the  yoke,  from  the  abuses  of  slavery,  and  especially 
from  the  incursions  of  the  pirates,  Britons  and  Scots,  robbers 
and  traffickers  in  men,  who  made  it  a  sort  of  store  from  which 
they  took  their  human  cattle.  The  most  authentic  memorial 
of  the  saint  which  remains  to  us  is  his  eloquent  protest 
against  the  king  of  a  British  horde,  who,  landing  in  the 
midst  of  a  tribe  baptized  the  evening  before,  massacred 
several,  and  carried  off  the  others  to  sell  them.  "  Patrick, 
an  ignorant  sinner,  but  constituted  bishop  in  Hibernia,  and 
dwelling  among  the  barbarous  nations,  because  of  my  love 
for  God,  I  write  these  letters  with  my  own  hand  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  the  soldiers  of  the  tyrant,  I  say  not  to  my  fellow- 
citizens,  nor  to  the  fellow-citizens  of  the  saints  of  Rome,  but 
to  the  compatriots  of  the  devil,  to  the  apostate  Scots  and 
Picts  who  live  in  death,  and  fatten  themselves  with  the 
blood  of  the  innocent  Christians  with  whom  I  have  travailed 
for  my  God.  .  .  .  Does  not  the  divine  mercy  which  I  love 
oblige  me  to  act  thus,  to  defend  even  those  who  of  old  made 
myself  captive  and  massacred  the  slaves  and  servants  of  my 
father  ?  "  ^  Elsewhere  he  praises  the  courage  of  the  en- 
slaved girls  whom  he  had  converted,  and  who  defended  their 
modesty  and  faith  heroically,  against  their  unworthy  masters.^ 
Men  and  women  were  treated  then  among  all  the  Celtic 
nations  as  they  were  during  the  last  century  on  the  coasts 
of  Africa.  Slavery,  and  the  trade  in  slaves,  was  still  more 
difficult  to  root  out  among  them  than  paganism.^      And  yet 

^  "  Inter  barbaras  gentes  proselytus  et  perf uga,  ob  amorem  Dei.  .  .  . 
Non  dico  civibus  meis  atque  civibus  sanctorum  Eomanorum,  sed  civibus 
daemonorum.  .  .  .  Socii  Scotorum  atque  Pictorum  apostatarum.  .  .  .  lUam 
gentem  qua3  me  aliquando  coepit,  et  devastavit  servos  et  ancillas  patris 
mei." — Ej)islola  S.  P.  ad  Christianos  CoroLici  Tyranni  subditos,  ap.  EOLLAND., 
d.  17  Mart.,  p.  538. 

2  "Sed  et  illse  maxima  laborant,  quae  servitio  detinentur,  usque  ad 
terrores  et  minas  assidue  perferunt." — Confessio  S.  Pateicii  de  Vita  et 
Conversatione  sua,  ap.  BOLL.,  p.  536. 

^  The  slave  trade  was  in  full  activity  in  the  tenth  century  between 
England  and  Ireland,  and  the  port  of  Bristol  was  its  principal  centre. 


246  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  Christian  faith  dawned  upon  Ireland  by  means  of  two 
slaves !  The  name  of  Patrick  is  associated  by  an  undying 
link  with  that  of  Bridget,  the  daughter,  according  to  the 
legend,  of  a  bard  and  a  beautiful  captive,  whom  her  master 
had  sent  away,  like  Hagar,  at  the  suggestion  of  his  wife. 
Born  in  grief  and  shame,  she  was  received  and  baptized, 
along  with  her  mother,  by  the  disciples  of  St.  Patrick.  In 
vain  would  her  father  have  taken  her  back  and  bestowed 
her  in  marriage  when  her  beauty  and  wisdom  became 
apparent.  She  devoted  herself  to  God  and  the  poor,  and 
went  to  live  in  an  oak-wood  formerly  consecrated  to  the 
false  gods.  The  miraculous  cures  she  wrought  attracted 
the  crowd,  and  she  soon  founded  the  first  female  monastery 
which  Ireland  had  known,  under  the  name  of  Kildare,  the 
Cell  of  the  Oak.  She  died  there  at  seventy,  after  an  entire 
life  of  love  and  labour.  Upon  her  tomb  immediately  rose 
the  inextinguishable  flame  called  the  Light  of  St.  Bridget^ 
which  her  nuns  kept  always  burning,  which  the  faith  and 
love  of  an  unfortunate  people  watched  over  for  a  thousand 
years  as  the  signal  light  of  the  country,  until  the  triumph 
of  a  sacrilegious  reform,  and  which  in  our  own  days  has 
been  relighted  by  the  muse  of  a  patriot  poet.^  Innumerable 
convents  of  women  trace  their  origin  to  the  abbess  of  Kildare : 
wherever  the  Irish  monks  have  penetrated,  from  Cologne  to 
Seville,  churches  have  been  raised  in  her  honour  ;  and  wher- 
ever, in  our  own  time,  British  emigration  spreads,  the  name 

^  "  Apud  Kildariam  occurret  ignis  sanctce  Brigida;,  qnem  inextinguibilem 
vocant ;  non  quod  extingui  non  posset,  sed  quod  tarn  soUicite  moniales  et 
sanct«  mulieres  ignem,  suppetente  materia,  fovent  et  nutriunt,  ut  tempore 
virginis  per  tot  annorum  curricula  semper  mansit  inextinctus." — GiKALD. 
Camb.,  De  Mirabil.  Bibcrn.,  Disq.  2,  c.  34. 

2  "  Like  the  bright  lamp  that  shone  in  Kildare's  holy  fane. 
And  burned  through  long  ages  of  darkness  and  storm. 
Is  the  heart  that  afflictions  have  come  o'er  in  vain, 
Whose  spirit  outlives  them,  unfading  and  warm  ! 
Erin  !  oh  Erin  I  thus  bright  through  the  tears 
Of  a  long  night  of  bondage  thy  spirit  appears." 

— Moore,  Irish  Melodies, 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  247 

of  Bridget  points  out  the  woman  of  Irish  race.^  Deprived 
by  persecution  and  poverty  of  the  means  of  erecting  monu- 
ments of  stone,  they  testify  their  unshaken  devotion  to  that 
dear  memory  by  giving  her  name  to  their  daughters — a 
noble  and  touching  homage  made  by  a  race,  always  unfor- 
tunate and  always  faithful,  to  a  saint  who  was  like  itself,  a 
slave,  and  like  itself,  a  Catholic.  There  are  glories  more 
noisy  and  splendid,  but  are  there  many  which  do  more 
honour  to  human  nature  ?  '^ 

The  productiveness  of  the  monastic  germ  planted  by 
Patrick  and  Bridget  was  prodigious.  In  his  own  lifetime, 
the  apostle  of  Ireland  was  astonished  to  find  that  he  could 
no  longer  number  the  sons  and  daughters  of  chieftains  who 
had  embraced  cloistral  life  at  his  bidding.^  The  rude  and 
simple  architecture  of  these  primitive  monasteries  has  left  a 
visible  trace  in  the  celebrated  round  toivcrs,  spread  over  the 
soil  of  Ireland,  which  had  so  long  exercised  the  ingenuity 
of  archseologists,  until  contemporary  science  demonstrated 
that  these  monuments  were  nothing  else  than  the  belfries 
of  cathedrals  and  abbeys  erected  between  the  time  of  the 
conversion  of  the  island  and  its  conquest  by  the  English. 
Among  so  many  saints  who  were  the  successors  and  emu- 

1  Bridget  or  Bride.  There  are  still  eighteen  parishes  in  Ireland  which 
bear  the  name  of  Kilbride,  or  the  church  of  Bridget. 

-  At  the  time  of  the  invasion  of  the  Danes,  who  burned  Kildare  in  835, 
the  shrine  of  St.  Bridget  was  removed  to  the  monastery  of  Downpatrick, 
where  the  body  of  St.  Patrick  reposed.  In  850  the  relics  of  St.  Columb- 
kill  were  for  a  like  reason  brought  from  the  Island  of  lona  to  the  same 
shelter.  Thus  the  three  great  saints  of  the  Celtic  race  are  to  be  found 
assembled  in  the  same  tomb.  Their  solemn  translation  was  celebrated,  in 
1 186,  by  a  legate  of  Pope  Urban  III. 

3  "  Filii  Scotorum  et  filise  regulorum  monachi  et  virgines  Christi  esse 
videntur  .  .  .  nescimus  numerum  corum." — Confessio,  loc.  cit.  Mabillon 
thinks  that  St.  Patrick  gave  the  rule  of  Marmoutier  to  his  newly-born 
communities.— Prce/.  in  I.  swc.  Bened. ,  cap.  i.  n.  25.  Compare  HAPTEN, 
Disquisitiones  Monasticce,  p.  57,  Antwerpia,  1644,  folio.  Lanigan  believes 
that  there  were  monks  in  Ireland  even  before  St.  Patrick. 

*  Essay  of  Mr.  Petrie,  presented  to  the  Royal  Academy  of  Ireland  in 
1836. 


248  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

lators  of  St.  Patrick,  we  shall  name  only  one,  Luan,  whose 
memory  St.  Bernard  consecrated  six  centuries  afterwards, 
by  affirming  that  he  had  himself  founded  in  his  own  person 
a  hundred  monasteries.^  This  Luan  was  a  little  shepherd 
who  had  been  educated  by  the  monks  of  the  immense  abbey 
of  Bangor.  For  shortly  the  monasteries  at  Bangor,  Clonfert, 
and  elsewhere,  became  entire  towns,  each  of  which  enclosed 
more  than  three  thousand  cenobites.  The  Thebaid  reap- 
peared in  Ireland,  and  the  West  had  no  longer  anything  to 
envy  in  the  history  of  the  East. 

There  was  besides  an  intellectual  development,  which  the 
Eremites  of  Egypt  had  not  known.  The  Irish  communi- 
ties, joined  by  the  monks  from  Gaul  and  Rome,  whom  the 
example  of  Patrick  had  drawn  upon  his  steps,^  entered  into 
rivalry  with  the  great  monastic  schools  of  Gaul.  They 
explained  Ovid  there ;  they  copied  Virgil ;  they  devoted 
themselves  especially  to  Greek  literature ;  they  drew  back 
from  no  inquiry,  from  no  discussion  ;  they  gloried  in  placing 
boldness  on  a  level  with  faith.  The  young  Luan  answered 
the  abbot  of  Bangor,  who  warned  him  against  the  dangers 
of  too  engrossing  a  study  of  the  liberal  arts  :  "  If  I  have 
the  knowledge  of  God,  I  shall  never  offend  God ;  for  they 
who  disobey  Him  are  they  who  know  Him  not,"  Upon 
which  the  abbot  left  him,  saying,  "  My  son,  thou  art  firm 
in  the  faith,  and  true  knowledge  will  put  thee  in  the  right 
road  for  heaven."  ^ 

A  characteristic  still  more  distinctive  of  the  Irish  monks, 
as  of  all  their  nation,  was  the  imperious  necessity  of  spread- 
ing themselves  without,  of  seeking  or  carrying  knowledge 

1  S.  Bernard.,  in  Vita  S.  Malachite,  c.  6. 
^  In  536,  fifty  monks  from  the  Continent  landed  at  Cork. 
3  See  OzANAM,  op.  cit.,  ii.  97,  loi,  472,  and  the  curious  verses  which  he 
quotes : — 

"  Benchoir  bona  regula 
Rocta  atque  divina  .  .  . 
Navis  nunquam  turbata  .  .  . 
Simplex  simul  atque  docta 
Undecumque  invicta.  .  .  ." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  249 

and  faith  afar,  and  of  penetrating  into  the  most  distant 
regions  to  watch  or  combat  paganism.  This  monastic 
nation,  therefore,  became  the  missionary  nation  ^a?^  excellence. 
While  some  came  to  Ireland  to  procure  religious  instruction, 
the  Irish  missionaries  launched  forth  from  their  island. 
They  covered  the  land  and  seas  of  the  West.  Unwearied 
navigators,  they  landed  on  the  most  desert  islands ;  they 
overflowed  the  Continent  with  their  successive  immigrations.^ 
They  saw  in  incessant  visions  a  world  known  and  unknown 
to  be  conquered  for  Christ.  The  poem  of  the  Pilgrimage  of 
St.  Brandan,  that  monkish  Odyssey  so  celebrated  in  the 
middle  ages,  that  popular  prelude  of  the  Divina  Commedia, 
shows  us  the  Irish  monks  in  close  contact  with  all  the 
dreams  and  wonders  of  the  Celtic  ideal.  Hereafter  we  shall 
see  them  struggling  against  the  reality ;  we  shall  speak  of 
their  metropolis  upon  the  rock  of  lona,  in  the  Hebrides  ;  we 
shall  tell  what  they  did  for  the  conversion  of  Great  Britain. 
But  we  must  follow  them  first  into  Gaul,  that  country  from 
which  the  Gospel  had  been  carried  to  them  by  Patrick. 
Several  had  already  reached  Armorica  with  that  invasion  of 
Celtic  refugees  which  we  have  described  in  the  preceding 
Book.  But  it  was  only  in  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  that 
the  action  of  Ireland  upon  the  countries  directly  subjected 
to  Frank  dominion  became  decisive.  She  thus  generously 
repaid  her  debt  to  Gaul.  She  had  received  Patrick  from 
Gaul ;  in  return,  she  sent  Columbanus. 

The  rival  of  St.  Benedict  was  born  the  same  year  in  which 
the  patriarch  of  Monte  Cassino  died.  Instructed  from  his 
infancy  in  literature  and  the  liberal  arts,  he  had  also  to 
struggle  early  with  the  temptations  of  the  flesh.  His  beauty, 
which  attracted  all  eyes,  exposed  him,  says  the  monk  who 
has  written  his   life,^  to  the   shameless  temptations  of  the 

^  "  In  exteras  etiam  nationes,  quasi  inundatione  facta  ilia  se  sanctorum 
examina  effuderunt."— S.  Bernaedi,  Vita  S.  Malach.,  c.  5. 

-  Vita  S.  Columbani  Ahbatis,  Auctorc  JONA,  Monacho  Bobiensl  Fere  Squall, 
ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.     This  Jonas  was  of  Susa,  in  Piedmont.     He 


2  50  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

beautiful  Irish  women.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  plunged  into 
the  study  of  grammar,  rhetoric,  geometry,  and  Holy  Scrip- 
ture. The  goad  of  voluptuousness  pricked  him  perpetually. 
He  went  to  the  cell  inhabited  by  a  pious  recluse  to  consult 
her.  "  Twelve  years  ago,"  she  answered  him,  "  I  myself 
left  my  own  house  to  enter  into  a  war  against  sin.  Inflamed 
by  the  fires  of  youth,  thou  shalt  attempt  in  vain  to  escape 
from  thy  frailty  while  thou  remainest  upon  thy  native  soil. 
Hast  thou  forgotten  Adam,  Samson,  David,  and  Solomon,  all 
lost  by  the  seductions  of  beauty  and  love  ?  Young  man,  to 
save  thyself,  thou  must  flee."  ^  He  listened,  believed  her, 
and  decided  on  going  away.  His  mother  attempted  to  deter 
him,  prostrating  herself  before  him  upon  the  threshold  of 
the  door ;  he  crossed  that  dear  obstacle,  left  the  province  of 
Leinster,  where  he  was  born,  and,  after  spending  some  time 
with  a  learned  doctor,  who  made  him  compose  a  commentary 
on  the  Psalms,  he  found  refuge  at  Bangor,  among  the  many 
monks  still  imbued  with  the  primitive  fervour  which  had 
assembled  them  there  under  the  cross  of  the  holy  abbot 
Comgall. 

But  this  first  apprenticeship  of  the  holy  war  was  not 
enough.  The  adventurous  temper  of  his  race,  the  passion 
for  pilgrimage  and  preaching,"  drew  him  beyond  the  seas. 
He  heard  incessantly  the  voice  which  had  spoken  to  Abra- 
ham echoing  in  his  ears,  "  Go  out  of  thine  own  country,  and 
from  thy  father's  house,  into  the  land  which  I  shall  show 
thee."  That  land  was  ours.  The  abbot  attempted  in  vain 
to  retain  him.      Columbanus,  then  thirty,  left  Bangor  with 

wrote  by  order  of  Attala  and  Eustace,  successors  of  Columbanus.  He 
quotes  Titus  Livius  and  Virgil  by  the  side  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  His 
book  is  one  of  the  most  curious  monuments  of  the  Merovingian  period. 

1  "  Liberalium  litterarum  doctrinis  et  grammaticorum  studiis.  .  .  .  Cum 
eum  formse  elegantia  .  .  .  omnibus  gratum  redderet.  .  .  .  Lascivarum 
puellarum  in  eum  suscitavit  amores,  prsecique  quas  forma  corporis.  .  .  . 
Perge,  o  juvenis  !  perge,  evita  ruinam." — Jonas,  c.  7,  8. 

-  "  Scottorum  quibus  consuetudo  peregrinandi  jam  pene  in  naturam 
conversa  est."— Walaeidus  Strabo,  De  Mirac.  S.  Gulli,  lib.  ii.  c.  47. 
"  Qui  tironem  suum  ad  futura  bella  erudierat."— Jonas,  c.  9. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  2$  I 

twelve  other  monks,  crossed  Great  Britain,  and  reached 
Gaul.  He  found  the  Catholic  faith  in  existence  there,  but 
Christian  virtue  and  ecclesiastical  discipline  unknown  or 
outraged — thanks  to  the  fury  of  the  wars  and  the  negligence 
of  the  bishops.  He  devoted  himself  during  several  years  to 
traversing  the  country,  preaching  the  Gospel,  and  especially 
to  giving  an  example  of  the  humility  and  charity  which  he 
taught  to  all.  Arriving  in  the  course  of  his  apostolical 
wanderings  in  Burgundy,  he  was  received  there  by  King 
Gontran,  of  all  the  grandsons  of  Clovis  the  one  whose  life 
appears  to  have  been  least  blamable,  and  who  had  most 
sympathy  for  the  monks.  His  eloquence  delighted  the  king 
and  his  lords.  Fearing  that  he  would  leave  them,  Gontran 
offered  him  whatever  he  chose  if  he  would  remain ;  and  as 
the  Irishman  answered  that  he  had  not  left  his  own  country 
to  seek  wealth,  but  to  follow  Christ  and  bear  His  cross,  the 
king  persisted,  and  told  him  that  there  were  in  his  king- 
doms many  savage  and  solitary  places  where  he  might  find 
the  cross  and  win  heaven,  but  that  he  must  on  no  account 
leave  Gaul,  nor  dream  of  converting  other  nations,  till  he 
had  assured  the  salvation  of  the  Pranks  and  Burgundians.^ 
Columbanus  yielded  to  his  desire,  and  chose  for  his 
dwelling-place  the  ancient  Roman  castle  of  Annegray.^ 
He  led  the  simplest  life  there  with  his  companions.  He 
lived  for  entire  weeks  without  any  other  food  than  the 
grass  of  the  fields,  the  bark  of  the  trees,  and  the  bilberries 
which  are  to  be  found  in  our  fir- woods ;  he  received  other 
provisions  only  from  the  charity  of  the  neighbours.  Often 
he  separated  himself  from  his  disciples  to  plunge  alone  into 

^  "Ob  negligentiam  prassulum,  religionis  virtus  pene  abolita.  .  .  . 
Gratus  regi  et  aulicis  ob  egregiam  doctrinfe  copiam.  .  .  .  Ut  intra  terminos 
Galliarum  resideret.  .  .  .  Tantum  ne  solo  nostrae  ditionis  relicto,  ad  vicinas 
transeas  nationes  .  .  .  ut  nostra  saluti  provideas." — Jonas,  c.  ir,  12. 
Compare  Walaf.  Steabon.,  lib.  i.  c.  2.  I  refer  to  the  Vic  des  Saints  de 
Franche-Comte,  t.  ii.,  and  to  vol.  vii.  of  October  by  the  new  Bollandists, 
p.  868,  for  the  divers  dates  assigned  to  the  journey  and  sojourn  of  Colum- 
banus in  France. 

2  Now  a  hamlet  of  the  commune  of  Faucogney  (Haute-Saone). 


252  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  woods,  and  live  in  common  with  the  animals.  There,  as 
afterwards,  in  his  long  and  close  communion  with  the  bare 
and  savage  nature  of  these  desert  places,  nothing  alarmed 
him,  nor  did  he  cause  fear  to  any  creature.  Everything 
obeyed  his  voice.  The  birds,  as  has  been  already  men- 
tioned, came  to  receive  his  caresses,  and  the  squirrels 
descended  from  the  tree-tops  to  hide  themselves  in  the 
folds  of  his  cowl.  He  expelled  a  bear  from  the  cavern 
which  became  his  cell ;  he  took  from  another  bear  a  dead 
stag,  whose  skin  served  to  make  shoes  for  his  brethren. 
One  day,  while  he  wandered  in  the  depths  of  the  wood, 
bearing  a  volume  of  Holy  Scripture  on  his  shoulder,  and 
meditating  whether  the  ferocity  of  the  beasts,  who  could 
not  sin,  was  not  better  than  the  rage  of  men,  which  de- 
stroyed their  souls,  he  saw  a  dozen  wolves  approach  and 
surround  him  on  both  sides.  He  remained  motionless, 
repeating  these  words,  "  Deus  in  adjutorium."  The  wolves, 
after  having  touched  his  garments  with  their  mouths,  see- 
ing him  without  fear,  passed  upon  their  way.  He  pursued 
his,  and  a  few  steps  farther  on  heard  a  noise  of  human 
voices,  which  he  recognised  as  those  of  a  band  of  German 
brigands,  of  the  Sueve  nation,  who  then  wasted  that  country. 
He  did  not  see  them  ;  but  he  thanked  God  for  having  pre- 
served him  from  this  double  danger,  in  which  may  be  seen 
a  double  symbol  of  the  constant  struggle  which  the  monks 
had  to  maintain  in  their  laborious  warfare  against  the  wild 
forces  of  nature,  and  the  still  more  savage  barbarity  of  men.-^ 
At  the  end  of  some  years,  the  increasing  number  of  his 

1  "Novem  dies  jam  transierant,  quo  ver  Dei  cum  suis  non  alias  dapes 
caperat  quam  arbornm  cortices  herbasque  saltus  .  .  .  vel  parvulorum 
pomorum  quse  BoUucas  vulgo  appellant.  .  .  .  Chamnoaldo  Lugduno 
clavato  pontifice,  qui  ejus  et  minister  et  discipulus  fuit,  cognovimus  refe- 
rente,  qui  se  testabatur  ssepe  vidisse  .  .  .  bestias  ac  aves  accersere  .  .  . 
ferusculam,  quam  vulgo  homines  Squirium  vocant.  .  .  .  Abiit  fera  mitis 
nee  prorsus  est  ausa  redire.  .  .  .  Contra  naturam  absque  murmurs  .  .  . 
cadaver  reliquit.  .  .  .  Conspicit  duodecim  lupos  advenire  .  .  .  ora  vesti- 
menti  ejus  jungunt  .  .  .  interritum  relinquunt.  .  .  .  Vocem  Suevorum 
multorum  per  avia  aberrantium." — JoNAS,  c.  14-16,  26,  30. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  253 

disciples  obliged  him  to  seek  another  residence,  and  by  the 
help  of  one  of  the  principal  ministers  of  the  Frank  king, 
Agnoald,  whose  wife  was  a  Burgundian  of  very  high  family,^ 
he  obtained  from  Gontran  the  site  of  another  strong  castle 
named  Luxeuil,  where  there  had  been  Roman  baths,  magnifi- 
cently ornamented,  and  where  the  idols  formerly  worshipped 
by  the  Gauls  were  still  found  in  the  neighbouring  forests. 
Upon  the  ruins  of  these  two  civilisations  the  great  monastic 
metropolis  of  Austrasia  and  Burgundy  was  to  be  planted. 

Luxeuil  was  situated  upon  the  confines  of  these  two 
kingdoms,  at  the  foot  of  the  Vosges,  and  north  of  that 
Sequania,  the  southern  part  of  which  had  already  been  for 
more  than  a  century  lighted  up  by  the  abbey  of  Condat. 
The  district  which  extends  over  the  sides  of  the  Vosges 
and  Jura,  since  so  illustrious  and  prosperous  under  the 
name  of  Franche- Comtek,  then  consisted,  for  a  range  of 
sixty  leagues  and  a  breadth  of  ten  or  fifteen,  of  nothing 
but  parallel  chains  of  inaccessible  defiles,  divided  by  im- 
penetrable forests,  and  bristling  with  immense  pine-woods, 
which  descended  from  the  heights  of  the  highest  mountains 
to  overshadow  the  course  of  the  rapid  and  pure  streams  of 
the  Doubs,  Dessoubre,  and  Loue.  The  Barbarian  invasions, 
and  especially  that  of  Attila,  had  reduced  the  Roman  towns 
into  ashes,  and  annihilated  all  agriculture  and  population. 
The  forest  and  the  wild  beasts  had  taken  possession  of  that 
solitude  which  it  was  reserved  for  the  disciples  of  Colum- 
banus  and  Benedict  to  transform  into  fields  and  pastures.^ 

Disciples  collected  abundantly  round  the  Irish  coloniser. 
He  could  soon  count  several  hundreds  of  them  in  the  three 

^  "Regis  conviva  et  consiliarius.  .  .  .  Conjux  ex  praeclara  Burgun- 
diorum  prosapia.  Quanquam  ejus  industria  uni versa  palatii  officia 
gererentur,  nee  non  totius  regni  querimonife  illius  acquissima  definitione 
terminarentur." — Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  1,3,  ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii. 

-  "  Erat  tunc  vasta  eremus  Vosagus  nomine  .  .  .  aspera  vastitate  soli- 
tudinis  et  scopulorum  interpositione  loca  aspera." — Jonas,  c.  12.  See  the 
excellent  description  of  Jura  and  its  monastic  agriculture,  in  the  Histoire 
des  Grandes  Forets  de  la  Gaule,  by  M.  Alpeed  Maury,  p.  181. 


2  54  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

monasteries  which  he  had  built  in  succession,  and  which  he 
himself  governed,^  The  noble  Franks  and  Burgundians, 
overawed  by  the  sight  of  these  great  creations  of  work  and 
prayer,  brought  their  sons  to  him,  lavished  gifts  upon  him, 
and  often  came  to  ask  him  to  cut  their  long  hair,  the  sign 
of  nobility  and  freedom,  and  admit  them  into  the  ranks  of 
his  army .2  Labour  and  prayer  attained  here,  under  the 
strong  arm  of  Columbanus,  to  proportions  up  to  that  time 
unheard  of.  The  multitude  of  poor  serfs  and  rich  lords 
became  so  great  that  he  could  organise  that  perpetual 
service,  called  Laus  perennis,  which  already  existed  at 
Agaune,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jura  and  Lake  Leman, 
where,  night  and  day,  the  voices  of  the  monks,  "  unwearied 
as  those  of  angels,"  arose  to  celebrate  the  praises  of  God  in 
an  unending  song.^ 

Rich  and  poor  were  equally  bound  to  the  agricultural 
labours,  which  Columbanus  himself  directed.  In  the  nar- 
rative of  the  wonders  which  mingle  with  every  page  of  his 
life,  they  are  all  to  be  seen  employed  successively  in  plough- 

1  Annegray,  Luxeuil,  and  Fontaines.  The  biographer  of  St.  Valery 
gives  the  number  two  hundred  and  twenty;  other  authors  say  six 
hundred. 

-  "  Ibi  nobilium  liberi  undique  concurrere  nitebantur." — JoNAS,  c.  17. 
"Multi  non  solum  de  genere  Burgundionum,  sed  etiam  Francorum  .  .  . 
confluxerunt  .  ,  .  ut  omnia  sua  ad  ipsum  locum  contraderent,  et  coma 
capitis  deposita." — Walafk.  Steabo,  c.  2. 

3  S.  Bernard.,  in  Vita  S.  Malach.,  c.  6.  Compare  Mabill.,  Annal.,  lib. 
viii.  n.  10,  16  ;  D.  Pitra,  Hist,  de  S.  Legcr,  p.  301  ;  the  Vic  des  Saints  de 
Franclie-Comti,  t.  ii.  pp.  25  and  478.  This  perpetual  service,  called  Laus 
perennis,  was  long  maintained  at  St.  Maurice,  at  Remiremont,  at  St.  Denis, 
and  elsewhere.  There  are  also  traces  of  its  existence  in  the  first  monas- 
teries of  Egypt  and  Palestine.  In  the  life  of  St.  Mary  the  Egyptian,  in 
speaking  of  a  monastery  near  Jordan,  are  the  following  words  :  "  Psallentia 
ibi  erat,  incessabiles  totius  noctis  habens  stabilitates  .  .  .  et  in  ore  psalmi 
divini  absque  diminutione."  — RoSWEYDE,  Vitce.  Patrum,  p.  383.  Alex- 
ander, a  Syrian  monk,  who  died  about  430,  founded  a  special  order  of 
monks  called  Ac6metes,  or  people  who  do  not  sleep.  He  ruled,  first  on  the 
shores  of  the  Euphrates,  and  afterwards  at  Constantinople,  three  hundred 
recluses,  divided  into  six  choirs,  who  relieved  each  other  in  singing  night 
and  day. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  255 

ing,  and  mowing,  in  reaping-,  and  in  cutting  wood.      With 

the  impetuosity  natural  to  him,  he  made  no  allowance  for 

any  weakness.      He  required   even  the  sick  to  thrash  the 

wheat.      An  article  of  his  rule  ordained  the  monk  to  go  to 

I  rest  so  fatigued  that  he  should  fall  asleep  on  the  way,  and 

I  to  get  up  before  he  had  slept  sufficiently.      It  is  at  the  cost 

j  of  this  excessive  and  perpetual  labour  that  the  half  of  our 

own  country  and  of  ungrateful  Europe  has  been  restored  to 

cultivation  and  life.^ 

Twenty  years  passed  thus,  during  which  the  reputation  of 
Columbanus  increased  and  extended  afar.     But  his  influence 
was  not  undisputed.    He  displeased  one  portion  of  the  Gallo- 
1   Frank  clergy,  in  the  first  place,  by  the  Irish  peculiarities  of 
I   his  costume  and  tonsure,  perhaps   also  by  the  intemperate 
/   zeal  with  which  he  attempted,  in  his  epistles,  to  remind  the 
bishops  of  their  duties,  and  certainly  by  his  obstinate  per- 
severance in  celebrating  Easter  according  to  Irish  usage,  on 
the  fourteenth  day  of  the  moon,  when  that  day  happened  on 
a  Sunday,  instead  of  celebrating  it,  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
Church,   on  the    Sunday  after   the    fourteenth    day.      This 
peculiarity,   at  once  trifling   and  oppressive,  disturbed   his 
whole  life,  and  weakened  his  authority ;  for  his  pertinacity 
on  this  point  reached  so  far  that  he  actually  attempted  more 
1  than  once  to  bring  the  Holy  See  itself  to  his  side.^ 
'        The  details  of   his   struggle  with   the  bishops  of  Gaul 
remain  unknown ;   but  the  resolution  he  displayed  may  be 
understood   by  some  passage  of  his  letter  to  the  synod  or 
council  which  met  to  examine  this  question.      The  singular 
mixture  of  humility  and  pride,  and  the  manly  and  original 

1  "Imperat  ut  omnes  surgant  atque  messem  in  area  virga  csedant.  .  .  . 
Cum  vidisset  eos  magno  labore  glebas  scindere." — Jonas,  c.  20,  23,  28. 
"  Lassus  ad  stratum  veniat,  ambulansque  dormitet,  necdum  expleto  somno 
surgere  compellatur." — Reg.  S.  Columbani,  c.  9. 

2  He  wrote  several  letters  on  this  subject  to  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  of 
which  there  is  no  trace  in  the  correspondence  of  this  pope,  and  only  one 
of  them  has  been  preserved  in  the  works  of  Columbanus.  In  the  latter, 
he  says  that  Satan  hindered  his  three  former  letters  from  coming  to  the 
hands  of  Gregory. 


256  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

eloquence  with  which  this  epistle  is  stamped,  does  not 
conceal  what  was  strange  and  irregular  in  the  part  which 
he  arrogated  to  himself  in  the  Church.  Though  he  calls 
himself  Colmiibanus  the  sinner,  it  is  very  apparent  that  he 
felt  himself  the  guide  and  instructor  of  those  to  whom  he 
spoke. 

He  begins  by  thanking  God  that,  owing  to  His  grace,  so 
many  holy  bishops  now  assemble  to  consider  the  interests 
of  faith  and  morality.  He  exhorts  them  to  assemble  more 
frequently,  despite  the  dangers  and  difficulties  which  they 
might  meet  on  the  road,  and  wishes  them  to  occupy  them- 
selves, under  the  presidence  of  Jesus  Christ,  not  only  with 
the  question  of  Easter,  but  with  other  canonical  observances 
cruelly  neglected.  He  prides  himself  on  his  own  trials,  and 
what  he  calls  the  persecution  of  which  he  has  been  the 
victim.  He  blames  the  diversity  of  customs  and  variety 
of  traditions  in  the  Church,  condemning  himself  thus 
by  his  own  mouth,  and  not  perceiving  the  wisdom  of 
ecclesiastical  authority,  which  seems  to  have  long  toler- 
ated, in  himself  and  his  compatriots,  the  individual  and 
local  observance  which  he  would  fain  have  inflicted  as  a 
yoke  upon  all  Christendom.  He  also  advocates  union  be- 
tween the  secular  and  regular  clergy ;  and  his  language 
then  becomes  more  touching  and  solemn.  "  I  am  not  the 
author  of  this  difference  :  I  have  come  into  these  parts,  a 
poor  stranger,  for  the  cause  of  the  Christ  Saviour,  our 
common  God  and  Lord ;  I  ask  of  your  holinesses  but  a 
single  grace  :  that  you  will  permit  me  to  live  in  silence  in 
the  depth  of  these  forests,  near  the  bones  of  seventeen  breth- 
ren whom  I  have  already  seen  die  :  I  shall  pray  for  you  with 
those  who  remain  to  me,  as  I  ought,  and  as  I  have  always 
done  for  twelve  years.  Ah  !  let  us  live  with  you  in  this 
Gaul,  where  we  now  are,  since  we  are  destined  to  live  with 
each  other  in  heaven,  if  we  are  found  worthy  to  enter  there. 
Despite  our  lukewarmness,  we  will  follow,  the  best  we  can, 
the  doctrines  and  precepts  of  our  Lord  and  the  apostles. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS 


257 


These  are  our  weapons,  our  shield,  and  our  glory.  To 
remain  faithful  to  them  we  have  left  our  country,  and  are 
come  among  you.  It  is  yours,  holy  fathers,  to  determine 
what  must  be  done  with  some  poor  veterans,  some  old 
pilgrims,  and  if  it  would  not  be  better  to  console  than  to 
disturb  them.  I  dare  not  go  to  you  for  fear  of  entering 
;  into  some  contention  with  you,  but  I  confess  to  you  the 
secrets  of  my  conscience,  and  how  I  believe,  above  all,  in 
the  traditions  of  my  country,  which  is,  besides,  that  of  St. 
Jerome." 

All  this  is  mingled  with  troublesome  calculations  about 
the  celebration  of  Easter,  and  a  great  array  of  Scripture 
1  texts.  It  ends  thus :  "  God  forbid  that  we  should  delight 
lour  enemies — namely,  the  Jew,  heretics,  and  pagans — by 
strife  among  Christians.  ...  If  God  guides  you  to  expel 
me  from  the  desert  which  I  have  sought  here  beyond  the 
seas,  I  should  only  say  with  Jonah,  '  Take  me  up,  and  cast 
me  forth  into  the  sea  ;  so  shall  the  sea  be  calm.'  But  before 
you  throw  me  overboard,  it  is  your  duty  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  sailors,  and  to  try  first  to  come  to  land ;  perhaps  even 
it  might  not  be  excess  of  presumption  to  suggest  to  you  that 
many  men  follow  the  broad  way,  and  that  when  there  are  a 
few  who  direct  themselves  to  the  narrow  gate  that  leads  to 
^life,  it  would  be  better  for  you  to  encourage  than  to  hinder 
I  them,  lest  you  fall  under  the  condemnation  of  that  text 
which  says,  'Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites !  for  ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against  men  : 
for  ye  neither  go  in  yourselves,  neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are 
entering  to  go  in.'  The  harder  the  struggle,  the  more  glorious 
is  the  crown.  They,  says  St.  Gregory,  who  do  not  avoid  the 
visible  evil  can  scarcely  believe  in  the  hidden  good.  For 
this  reason  St.  Jerome  enjoins  the  bishops  to  imitate  the 
apostles,  and  the  monks  to  follow  the  fathers,  who  have  been 
perfect.  The  rules  of  the  priests  and  those  of  the  monks 
are  very  different;  let  each  keep  faithfully  the  profession 
which  he  has  embraced,  but  let  all  follow  the  Gospel  and 
VOL.  n.  R 


258  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

Christ  their  head.  .  .  .  Yet  pray  for  us,  as  we,  despite  our 
lowliness,  pray  for  you.  Regard  us  not  as  strangers  to  you ; 
for  all  of  us,  whether  Gauls  or  Britons,  Spaniards  or  others, 
are  members  of  the  same  body.  I  pray  you  all,  my  holy  and 
patient  fathers  and  brethren,  to  forgive  the  loquacity  and 
boldness  of  a  man  whose  task  is  above  his  strength."  ^ 

When  we  think  that  neither  in  the  life  of  Columbanus 
himself,  which  is  written  in  minute  detail,  nor  in  the  history 
of  his  age,  is  there  any  trace  of  repression  or  even  of  serious 
censure,  directed  against  the  foreign  monk  who  thus  set  him- 
self forth  as  a  master  and  judge  of  the  bishops,  we  cannot 
but  admire  this  proof  of  the  liberty  then  enjoyed  by  Chris- 
tians, even  where  the  rights  of  authority  might  have  been 
most  jealously  preserved. 

It  is,   however,  doubtful  whether  this   attitude  had  not 

1  "  Doniinis  Sanctis  et  in  Christo  patribus  vel  fratribus  episcopis,  presby- 
teris,  cfcterisque  S.  Ecclesije  ordinibus,  Columba  peccatur,  salutem  in 
Christo  prjemitto.— Gratias  ago  Deo  meo  quod  mei  causa  in  unum  tanti 
congregati  sunt  sancti.  .  .  .  Utinam  sajpius  hoc  ageretis.  .  .  .  Hoc  potis- 
simum  debuit  vobis  inesse  studium.  .  .  .  Multum  nocuit  nocetque  ecclesi- 
asticce  paci  diversitas  morum  et  varietas  traditionum.  .  .  .  Unum  deposco  | 
a  vestra  sanctitate  .  .  .  ut,  quia  hujus  divinitatis  auctor  non  sum,  ac  pro  | 
Christo  Salvatore  communi  Domino  et  Deo  in  has  terras  peregrinus  pro-  i 
cesserim,  ut  mihi  liceat  ...  in  his  silvis  silere  et  vivere  juxta  ossa  nostro- 
rum  fratrum  decem  et  septem  defunctorum  sicut  usque  nunc  licuit  nobis 
inter  vos  vixisse  duodecira  annis,  ut  provobis,  sicut  usque  nunc  fecimus, 
oremus,  ut  dubemus.  Capiat  nos  simul,  oro,  Gallia,  quos  capiet  regnum 
ccelorum,  si  boni  simus  meritis.  ...  Hi  sunt  nostri  canones,  dominica  et 
apostolica  mandata.  .  .  .  Hsec  arma,  scutum  et  gladium  .  .  .  h«c  nos 
moverunt  de  patria  :  hsec  et  hie  servare  contendimns,  licet  tepide  ...  in 
his  perseverare  optamus  sicut  et  seniores  nostros  facere  conspeximus 
.  .  .  Vos,  patres  sancti,  videte  quid  faciatis  ad  istos  veteranos  pauperes  et 
peregrines  senes.  .  .  .  Confiteor  conscientiaj  mese  secreta,  quod  plus  credo 
traditioni  patrias  mea;.  .  .  .  Alia  enim  sunt  et  alia  clericorum  et  mona- 
chorum  documenta,  et  longe  ab  invicem  separata.  .  .  .  De  c^taro,  patres, 
orate  pro  nobis,  sicut  et  nos  facimus,  viles  licet,  pro  vobis  ;  et  nolite  nos  a 
vobis  alianos  repulsare  :  unum  enim  corporis  sumus  commembra,  sive 
Galli,  sive  Britanni,  sive  Iberi,  sive  quseque  gentes.  .  .  .  Date  veniam  meas 
loquacitati  ac  procacitati  supra  vires  laboranti,  patientissimi  atque  sanctis- 
simi  patres  quique  et  fra,tres."—EpisL  ii.  ap.  GallanduS,  Bibl.  Veter. 
Fair.,  t.  xii.  p.  347. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  259 

shaken  the  influence  which  the  virtues  and  sanctity  of 
Columbanus  had  won  for  him  among  the  Gallo-Franks. 
But  he  soon  recovered  it  entirely  in  the  conflict  for  the 
honour  of  Christian  morals,  which  he  undertook  against 
Queen  Brunehault  and  her  grandson,  and  which  we  must 
i  relate  in  some  details,  because  this  struggle  was  the  first, 
/  and  not  the  least  remarkable,  of  those  which  arose  on  various 
occasions  between  the  monks  and  Christian  kings,  who  had 
been  so  long  and  naturally  allied. 

The  Frank  government  in  Gaul  was,  as  is  known,  naturally 
divided  into  three  distinct  kingdoms,  Neustria,  Austrasia 
and  Burgundy.      The  ancient  kingdom  of  the  Burgondes  or 
of  Burgundy,  finally  conquered  by  the  sons  of  Clovis,  had 
been  reconstituted  by  his  grandson  Gontran,  the  same  who 
gave  so  good  a  reception  to  Columbanus,  and  it  was  at  the 
northern  extremity  of  this  kingdom  that  Luxeuil  was  founded. 
Gontran  having  died  without  issue,  Burgundy  passed  to  his 
nephew,  the  young  Childebert  II.,  already  king  of  Austrasia, 
the  son  of  the  celebrated  Brunehault.     He  died  shortly  after] 
leaving  two  sons  under  age,  Theodebert  II.  and  Thierry  11.' 
The  succession  was  divided  between  them :  Theodebert  had 
Austrasia,  and  Thierry,  Burgundy;   but  their  grandmother 
Brunehault  immediately  constituted  herself  their  guardian, 
and  took  possession  of  the  power  royal  in  the  two  kingdoms] 
whilst  her  terrible  enemy,  Fredegund,  whom  Gontran  had  so' 
justly  named  the  eneviy  of  God  and  man,  governed  Neustria 
in  the  name  of  her  son  Clotaire  II.,  who  was  also  a  minor. 
The   whole  of  Frankish    Gaul   was   thus   in    the    hands    of 
two  women,  who  governed  it  in  the  name  of  three  kings,  all 
minors.^      But  shortly  the  great  feudal  lords  of  Austrasia, 
among  whom  the  indomitable  independence  of  the  Franks 
had  been  preserved  more  unbroken  than  among  the  Neus- 
trians,  disgusted  by  the  violent  and  arbitrary  bearing    of 
Brunehault,  obliged  the  eldest  of  her  grandsons  to  expel  her 
1  Fredegund  died  a  short  time  after,  in  597,  triumphing  over  all  her 


inemies. 


26o  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

from  his  kingdom.  She  consoled  herself  hy  establishing 
her  residence  with  the  young  king  Thierry  in  Burgundy, 
where  she  continued  to  exercise  over  the  Burgundian  nobles 
and  bishops  that  haughty  and  often  cruel  sway  which  had 
made  her  presence  intolerable  in  Austrasia. 

To  identify  Brunehault  in  any  degree  with  her  impure  and 
sinister  rival,  who  was  at  once  much  more  guilty  and  more 
prosperous  than  she,  would  be  to  judge  her  too  severely. 
Gregory  of  Tours  has  praised  her  beauty,  her  good  manners, 
her  prudence  and  affability  ;  and  Gregory  the  Great,  in  con- 
gratulating the  Franks  on  having  so  good  a  queen,  honoured 
her  with  public  eulogiums,  especially  in  his  celebrated  diploma 
relative  to  St.  Martin  of  Autun,  which  she  had  built  and  en- 
dowed richly  upon  the  spot  where  the  holy  Bishop  of  Tours, 
going  into  the  country  of  the  Eduens,  had  destroyed  the  last 
sanctuary  of  vanquished  paganism  at  the  peril  of  his  life. 
This  abbey,  long  celebrated  for  its  wealth  and  for  its  flourish- 
ing schools,  became  afterwards  the  sepulchre  of  Brunehault ; 
and,  nine  centuries  after  her  cruel  death,  a  daily  distribution 
to  the  poor,  called  the  alms  of  Brunehault,^  kept  her  memory 
popular  still. 

But  Brunehault,  as  she  grew  old,  retained  only  the  daunt- 
less warmth  of  her  early  years ;  she  preserved  neither  the 
generosity  nor  the  uprightness.  She  sacrificed  everything 
to  a  passion  for  rule,  and  to  the  temptation  of  re-establishing 
a  kind  of  Eoman  monarchy.'  This  thirst  for  sovereignty 
led  her  so  far — she,  whose  youth  had  been  without  reproach 

as  to  encourage  her  grandsons  in  that  polygamy  which 

seems  to  have  been  the  melancholy  privilege  of  the  Germanic 

1  S.  Greg.  Magn.,  Epist.,  xiii.  6;  Gkeg.  Turon.,  Hist.  Ecd.,  iv.  27. 
The  abbey  of  St.  Martin  of  Autun  possessed,  according  to  the  Burgundian 
tradition,  as  many  as  a  hundred  thousand  manses.  The  church,  rebuilt 
with  magnificence  in  the  ninth  century,  was  razed  in  1750  by  the  monks 
themselves  ;  they  built  another,  which  met  with  the  same  fate  in  1808. 
The  plough  has  since  then  passed  over  the  site  of  the  church  and  monas- 
tery. There  is  a  valuable  monograph  of  this  abbey  published  by  M. 
BuUiot,  Autun,  1849,  2  vols. 

2  Henki  Martin,  ii.  106. 


\ 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  26  I 

and  especially  of  the  Merovingian  princes/  From  the  fear 
of  having  a  rival  in  power  and  honour  near  the  throne  of 
Thierry,  she  opposed  with  all  her  might  every  attempt  to 
replace  his  concubines  by  a  legitimate  queen,  and  when, 
finally,  he  determined  on  espousing  a  Visigoth  princess, 
Brunehault,  though  herself  the  daughter  of  a  Visigoth  king, 
succeeded  in  disgusting  her  grandson  with  his  bride,  and 
made  him  repudiate  her  at  the  end  of  a  year.  The  Bishop 
of  Vienne,  St.  Didier,  who  had  advised  the  king  to  marry, 
was  murdered  by  the  ruffians  whom  the  queen-mother  had 
laid  in  wait  for  him. 

However,  the  young  Thierry  had  religious  instincts.  He 
was  rejoiced  to  possess  in  his  kingdom  a  holy  man  like 
Columbanus.  He  went  often  to  visit  him.  Irish  zeal  took 
advantage  of  this  to  reprove  him  for  his  disorderly  life,  and 
to  exhort  him  to  seek  the  sweetness  of  a  legitimate  spouse, 
that  the  royal  race  might  flow  from  an  houourable  queen 
and  not  from  prostitution.  The  young  king  promised 
amendment,  but  Brunehault  easily  turned  him  away  from 
these  good  resolutions.  Columbanus  having  gone  to  visit 
her  at  the  manor  of  Bourcheresse,  she  presented  to  him  the 
four  sons  whom  Thierry  already  had  by  his  concubines. 
"What  would  these  children  with  me?"  said  the  monk. 
"  They  are  the  sons  of  the  king,"  said  the  queen ;  "  streng- 
then them  by  thy  blessing."  "  No  ! "  answered  Columbanus, 
"  they  shall  not  reign,  for  they  are  of  bad  origin."  From 
that  moment  Brunehault  swore  war  to  the  death  against 
him.  She  began  by  debarring  the  monks  of  the  monastery 
governed  by  Columbanus  from  leaving  their  convent,  and 
the  people  from  receiving  them  or  giving  them  the  slightest 
help.  Columbanus  endeavoured  to  enlighten  Thierry  and 
lead  him  back  to  a  better  way.  He  went  to  visit  him  at 
his  royal  seat  of  Epoisses.  Hearing  that  the  abbot  had 
arrived,  but  would  not  enter  the  palace,  the  king  sent  him 

^  "Ob  nobilitatem  plurimis nuptiis ambiuntur."— Tacit.,  De Mor.  Germ., 
c.  18. 


262  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

a  sumptuous  repast.  Columbanus  refused  to  accept  anything 
from  the  hand  of  him  who  forbade  the  servants  of  God  to 
have  access  to  the  homes  of  other  men,  and  at  the  sound  of 
his  curse,  all  the  vessels  which  contained  the  various  meats 
were  miraculously  broken  in  pieces.  The  king,  alarmed  by 
that  wonder,  came  with  his  grandmother  to  ask  his  pardon, 
and  to  promise  amendment.  Columbanus,  mollified,  returned 
to  his  monastery,  where  he  soon  learned  that  Thierry  had 
fallen  back  into  his  habitual  debauchery.  Then  he  wrote  to 
the  king  a  letter  full  of  vehement  reproaches,  in  which  he 
threatened  him  with  excommunication.^ 

Thus,  this  stranger,  this  Irish  missionary,  the  obliged 
guest  of  King  Gontran,  would  venture  to  go  the  length  of 
excommunicating  the  king  of  Burgundy,  the  heir  of  his 
benefactor !  Brunehault  had  no  difficulty  in  raising  the 
principal  leudes  of  the  court  of  Thierry  against  that  unac- 
customed boldness ;  she  even  undertook  to  persuade  the 
bishops  to  interfere  in  order  to  censure  the  rule  of  the  new 
institution.  Excited  by  all  that  he  heard  going  on  around 
him,  Thierry  resolved  to  take  the  offensive,  and  presented 
himself  at  Luxeuil  to  demand  a  reckoning  with  the  abbot, 
why  he  went  against  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  why 
the  interior  of  the  convent  was  not  open  to  all  Christians, 
and  even  to  women ;  for  it  was  one  of  the  grievances  of 
Brunehault,  that  Columbanus  had  interdicted  even  her,  al- 
though queen,  from  crossing  the  threshold  of  the  monastery. 
The  young  king  went  as  far  as  the  refectory,  saying  that  he 
would  have  the  entrance  free  to  all,  or  that  they  must  give 
up  all  royal  gifts.  Columbanus,  with  his  accustomed  bold- 
ness, said  to  the  king,  "  If  you  would  violate  the  severity  of 
our  rules,  we  have  no  need  of  your  gifts  :   and  if  you  would 


^  "  Gratulabatur  quia  in  termino  regni  sui  B.  Columbanum  haberet.  .  .  . 
Ut  non  potius  legitimsR  conjugis  solamine  frueretur,  ut  regalis  proles  ex 
honorabili  regina  proderet,  et  non  ex  lupanaribus  videretur  emergi.  .  .  . 
Apud  Spissiam  villam  publicam.  .  .  .  Litteras  verberibus  plenas.  .  .  ." — 
Jonas,  c.  31,  32. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  263 

come  here  to  destroy  our  monastery,  know  that  your  kingdom 
shall  be  destroyed,  with  all  your  race." 

The  king  was  afraid  and  went  out ;  but  he  soon  replied : 
"  Thou  art  in  hopes  perhaps  that  I  will  procure  thee  the 
crown  of  martyrdom  ;    but  I  am  not  fool  enough  for  that ; 
'  only,  since  it  pleases  thee  to  live  apart  from  all  relation 
with   the  secular   people,  thou  hast  but  to  return  whence 
thou  camest,  even  to  thy  own  country."      All  the  nobles  of 
the  royal  suite  exclaimed  that  they  would  no  longer  tolerate 
in  their  land  men  who  thus  isolated  themselves  from  the 
world.     Columbanus  replied  that  he  would  leave  his  monas- 
tery only  when  taken  from  it  by  force.     He  was  then  taken 
I  and  conducted  to  Besanpon,  to  wait  there  the  ultimate  orders 
I  of  the  king.^     After  which  a  sort  of  blockade  was  established 
/  round  Luxeuil  to  prevent  any  one  from  leaving  it. 

The  monks  then  recollected  that  they  had  among  them  a 
young  man  called  Agilus,  son  of  that  Agnoald,  prime  minis- 
ter of  Gontran,  who,  twenty  years  before,  had  obtained  for 
Columbanus  the  gift  of  Luxeuil,  and  who  afterwards  entrusted 
his  son,  then  a  child,  to  the  Irish  abbot  to  be  trained  in 
monastic  life.  They  charged  Agilus  with  the  mission  of 
obtaining  the  abolition  of  this  interdict  from  the  king  and 
queen.  The  young  monk  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  nephew 
of  the  duke  of  Sequania,  who,  under  pretence  of  hunting, 
I  guarded  the  avenues  of  the  monastery  ;  but  by  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  he  made  the  sword  fall,  and  withered  the  arm 
which  was  raised  to  strike  him,  and  was  permitted  to  pro- 
ceed on  his  way.  By  one  of  those  sudden  and  transitory 
compunctions  so  frequent  in  the  life  of  the  Merovingians, 
Thierry  and  his  grandmother  received  the  envoy  of  the  monks 
with  demonstrations  of  humility,  prostrated  themselves  before 

1  "  Ea  maxime  pro  causa  infesta  erat  eo  quod  .  .  .  sibi  quse  regina  erat 

j  idem  contradixerat." — Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  7,  ap.  Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.      "Ut 

I  erat  audax,  atque  animo  vigens.  .  .  .  Si  ob  banc  causam  hoc  in  loco  venisti. 

.  .  .  Martyrii  coronam  me  tibi  illaturum  speras  :  non  esse  me  tantse  demen- 

tisescias.  .  .  .  Quaveneras,  eaviarepedarestudeas.  .  .  .  Aulicorum  consona 

;  voce  vota  prorumpunt." — JoNAS,  c.  23. 


264  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

him,  raised  the  blockade  of  the  monastery,  and  even  made 
him  costly  presents.-^ 

But  their  hearts  were  not  softened  in  respect  to  Colum- 
banus.  He,  surrounded  at  Besancjon  by  the  respect  of  all, 
and  left  at  freedom  in  the  town,  took  advantage  of  it  to 
ascend  one  morning  to  the  height  of  a  rock,  on  which  the 
citadel  is  now  situated,  and  which  is  encircled  by  the  tor- 
tuous stream  of  the  Doubs.^  From  this  height  he  surveyed 
the  road  which  led  to  Luxeuil ;  he  seemed  to  investigate  there 
the  obstacles  which  prevented  his  return.  His  resolution  was 
taken  ;  he  descended,  left  the  town,  and  directed  his  steps 
towards  his  monastery.  At  the  news  of  his  return,  Thierry 
and  Brunehault  sent  a  count  with  a  cohort  of  soldiers  to  lead 
him  back  into  exile.  Then  ensued  a  scene  which,  during 
twelve  centuries,  and  even  in  our  own  days,  has  been  often 
repeated  between  the  persecutors  and  their  victims.  The 
messengers  of  the  royal  will  found  him  in  the  choir,  chant- 
ing the  service  with  all  his  community.  "  Man  of  God,"  they 
said,  "  we  pray  you  to  obey  the  king's  orders  and  ours,  and 
to  return  from  whence  you  came."  "No,"  answered  Colum- 
banus,  "  after  having  left  my  country  for  the  service  of  Jesus 
Christ,  I  cannot  think  that  my  Creator  means  me  to  return." 
At  these  words  the  count  withdrew,  leaving  the  most  fero- 
cious of  his  soldiers  to  accomplish  the  rest.  Subdued  by  the 
firmness  of  the  abbot,  who  repeated  that  he  would  yield  only 
to  force,  they  threw  themselves  on  their  knees  before  him, 

^  "  Sub  obtentu  venantium  .  .  .  observabant  exitus  monasterii  more 
latronum.  .  .  .  Rex  et  regina  .  .  .  humo  coram  vestigiis  illius  procum- 
bunt." — Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  7,  8. 

2  The  description  which  Jonas  gives  of  this  spot  is  even  at  the  present 
time  strikingly  correct,  and  was  especially  so  before  Louis  XIV.,  after  the 
conquest  of  Franche-Comte,  had  demolished  the  cathedral  of  St.  Etienne 
and  all  the  buildings  which  covered  the  sides  of  the  rock  :  "  Adscendet 
dominica  die  in  verticem  arduum  ad  cacumen  mentis  illius  (ita  enim  situs 
urbis  habetur,  cum  domorum  densitas  in  diffuse  latere  proclivi  mentis 
sita  sit,  prerumpant  ardua  in  sublimibus  cacumina  qua3  undique  abscissi 
fiuminisZ>o«a;  alveo  vallante  nullatenus  commeantibus  viam  pandit),  ibique 
usque  ad  medium  diei  exspectat,  si  aliquis  iter  ad  monasterium  revertendi 
prohibeat." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  265 

weeping  and  entreating  him  to  pardon  them,  and  not  to 
oblige  them  to  use  the  violence  which  they  were  compelled 
to  employ,  on  pain  of  their  life.  At  the  thought  of  a  danger 
which  was  no  longer  personal  to  himself,  the  intrepid  Irish- 
man yielded,  and  left  the  sanctuary  which  he  had  founded 
and  inhabited  for  twenty  years,  but  which  he  was  never  to 
see  again. ■^ 

His  monks  surrounded  him  with  lamentations  as  if  they 
were  following  his  funeral.  He  consoled  them  by  telling 
them  that  this  persecution,  far  from  being  ruinous  to  them, 
would  only  promote  the  increase  of  "  the  monastic  nation." 
They  would  all  have  followed  him  into  exile  ;  but  a  royal 
order  forbade  that  consolation  to  any  but  the  monks  of  Irish 
or  Britannic  origin.  Brunehault  was  anxious  to  free  herself 
from  these  audacious  and  independent  islanders  as  well  as 
from  their  leader,  but  she  had   no  desire  to  ruin  the  great 

^  "  Vir  Dei,  precamur  .  .  .  eo  itinere  quo  primuin  adventasti.  .  .  .  Non 
reor  .  .  .  semel  natali  solo  ob  Christi  timorem  relicto.  .  .  .  Relictis  qui- 
busdam  quibus  ferocitas  animi  inerat." — JoNAS,  c.  36.  How  can  we  fail 
to  be  struck  with  the  identity  of  the  struggles  and  triumphs  of  the  Church 
throughout  all  ages,  when  we  see  what  passed  at  Luxeuil,  in  610,  renewed, 
after  twelve  centuries,  against  the  poor  monks  in  Caucasia  ?  We  read  in 
the  Journal  des  Debats  of  April  23,  1845  '•  "We  publish  some  details  of  the 
expulsion  of  the  Catliolic  missionaries  from  the  provinces  of  Caucasia.  On 
the  first  day  of  the  year,  two  carts,  escorted  by  Cossacks  armed  with 
lances  and  pistols,  stopped  before  the  gate  of  the  convent  of  Tiflis.  Some 
of  the  agents  of  police  immediately  entered  the  convent  and  ordered  the 
monks  to  get  into  the  carts.  The  latter  declared  that  they  would  only 
surrender  to  force  ;  then  they  entered  the  church  of  the  convent  and  knelt 
before  the  altar.  The  agents  waited  for  some  time  ;  but  when  at  the  end 
of  an  hour  they  saw  that  the  monks  did  not  manifest  any  intention  of  obey- 
ing, they  repeated  to  them  the  order  to  depart.  The  missionaries  answered 
that  they  would  not  voluntarily  quit  the  post  which  had.  been  confided  to 
them  by  their  spiritual  head.  This  answer  was  conveyed  to  General  Gurko, 
governor  of  Tiflis,  who  ordered  them  to  be  brought  out  by  force  and 
removed  into  the  carts.  The  order  was  immediately  executed.  The  mis- 
sionaries of  Gori  were  expelled  in  the  same  manner." — The  same  journal 
relates,  in  its  next  day's  number,  how  similar  violences  were  exercised,  no 
longer  in  the  Caucasus,  but  in  France,  upon  the  Hospitaller  nuns  of  St. 
Joseph  at  Avignon,  in  the  same  month  of  April  1S45.  The  expulsion  of 
the  Irish  and  English  monks  of  La  Trappe  of  Melleray,  in  1831,  bears  also 
some  features  of  resemblance  to  the  history  of  Luxeuil. 


266  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

establishment  of  which  Burgundy  was  already  proud.  The 
saint,  accompanied  by  his  Irish  brethren,  departed  into  exile. 

The  history  of  his  journey,  carefully  recorded  by  his  dis- 
ciples, is  full  of  information  respecting  the  places  and  customs 
of  Frankish  Gaul.  He  was  taken  through  Besanpon  a  second 
time,  then  through  Autun,  Avallon,  along  the  Cure  and  the 
Yonne  to  Auxerre,  and  from  thence  to  Nevers,  where  he 
embarked  upon  the  Loire.  He  marked  each  stage  of  his 
journey  by  miraculous  cures  and  other  wonders,  which,  never- 
theless, did  not  diminish  the  rancour  which  he  had  excited. 
On  the  road  to  Avallon,  he  met  an  equerry  of  King  Thierry, 
who  attempted  to  pierce  him  with  his  lance.  At  Nevers,  at 
the  moment  of  embarking,  a  cruel  hanger-on  of  the  escort 
took  an  oar  and  struck  Lua,  one  of  the  most  pious  of  Colum- 
banus's  companions,  to  quicken  his  entrance  into  the  boat. 
The  saint  cried,  "  Cruel  wretch,  what  right  hast  thou  to 
aggravate  my  trouble  ?  How  darest  thou  to  strike  the  weary 
members  of  Christ  ?  Remember  that  the  divine  vengeance 
shall  await  thee  on  this  spot  where  thou  hast  struck  the 
servant  of  God."  And  in  fact,  on  his  return,  this  wretch 
fell  into  the  water  and  was  drowned  on  the  very  spot  where 
he  had  struck  Lua.^ 

Arrived  at  Orleans,  he  sent  two  of  his  brethren  into  the 
town  to  buy  provisions ;  but  no  one  would  either  sell  or  give 
them  anything  in  opposition  to  the  royal  orders.  They  were 
treated  as  outlaws — enemies  of  the  king,  whom  the  Salic 
law  forbade  his  subjects  to  receive,  under  the  penalty  (enor- 
mous in  those  days)  of  six  hundred  deniers.  Even  the 
churches  were    closed  against  them   by  the   king's  orders. 

1  "Velut  funus  subsequentibus.  ...  Ob  multiplicandas  plebes  mona- 
chorum  banc  esse  datam  occasionem.  .  .  .  Quos  sui  ortus  terra  dederat, 
vel  qui  a  Britannico  arvo  ipsum  secuti.  .  .  .  Gustos  equorum  .  .  .  occur- 
rit.  .  .  .  Ubi  lento  conamine  in  scapbam  ihsilirent.  .  .  .  Arrepto  remo.  .  .  . 
Cur  crudelis  moerorem  milii  addis." — Jonas,  c.  36,  38,  40.  Mabillon  {Annal., 
t.  i.  p.  293)  supposes  tbat  this  Lua  might  be  the  Irish  saint  of  whom  St. 
Bernard  speaks  as  having  founded  a  hundred  monasteries ;  but  nothing 
oould  be  more  improbable. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  267 

But,  in  retracing  their  steps,  they  met  a  Syrian  woman,  one 
of  that  Oriental  colony  whose  presence  in  Gaul  has  been 
already  remarked  under  Childebert  I.  She  asked  them 
whence  they  came,  and,  on  hearing,  offered  them  hospitality, 
and  gave  them  all  that  they  needed.  "  I  am  a  stranger  like 
you,"  she  said,  "  and  I  come  from  the  distant  sun  of  the  East." 
She  had  a  blind  husband,  to  whom  Columbanus  restored  sight. 
The  people  of  Orleans  were  touched  by  this  incident ;  but  they 
dared  only  testify  their  veneration  for  the  exile  in  secret.'^ 

Passing  before  the  town  of  Tours,  Columbanus  begged  to 
be  permitted  to  pray  at  the  tomb  of  the  great  St.  Martin, 
who  was  equally  venerated  by  the  Celts,  Romans,  and 
Franks  ;  but  his  savage  guardians  ordered  the  boatmen  to 
increase  the  speed  of  their  oars,  and  keep  in  the  middle  of 
the  stream.  However,  an  invisible  force  stayed  the  boat ;  it 
directed  itself  towards  the  port.  Columbanus  landed,  and 
spent  the  night  near  the  holy  tomb.  The  Bishop  of  Tours 
found  him  there,  and  took  him  to  dine  in  his  house.  At 
table  he  was  asked  why  he  was  returning  to  his  own  country. 
He  answered,  "  This  dog  of  a  Thierry  has  hunted  me  from 
the  home  of  my  brethren."  Then  one  of  the  company,  who 
was  a  leude  or  trusty  vassal  of  the  king,  said  in  a  low  voice, 
"  Would  it  not  be  better  to  give  men  milk  to  drink  rather 
than  wormwood  ?  "  "I  see,"  answered  Columbanus,  "  that 
thou  wouldst  keep  thy  oath  to  King  Thierry.  Well !  say  to 
thy  friend  and  thy  lord,  that  three  years  from  this  time  he 
and  his  children  will  be  destroyed,  and  that  his  whole  race 
shall  be  rooted  out  by  God."  "  Why  do  you  speak  thus, 
servant  of  God?"  said  the  leude.  "I  cannot  keep  silent," 
answered  the  saint,  "  what  God  has  charged  me  to  speak."  ^ 

^  Lex  Salica,  art.  56,  edit.  Merkel.  EOTH,  Benefizialioesen,  p.  140.  "  Regio 
timore  aut  vendere  aut  dare  nihil  audebant.  .  .  .  Nam  et  ego  advena  sum 
ex  longinquo  Orientis  sole  .  .  .  vir  meus  ex  eodem  genere  Syrorum  sicut 
et  ego." — Jonas,  c.  41. 

*  "Canis  me  Theodoricus  meis  a  fratribus  abegit.  .  .  .  Humili  voce 
...  si  melius  esset  lacte  potari  quam  absynthio  ?  .  .  .  Cognosco  te  regis 
Theodorici  foedera  velle  servare.  .  .  .  Amico  tuo  et  domino." 


268  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

Arrived  at  Nantes,  and  on  the  eve  of  leaving  the  soil  of 
Gaul,  his  thoughts  turned  towards  Luxeuil,  and  he  wrote  a 
letter,  which  begins  thus :  "  To  his  dearest  sons,  his  dearest 
pupils,  to  his  brethren  in  abstinence,  to  all  the  monks, 
Columbanus  the  sinner."  In  this  he  pours  out  his  heart. 
Obscure,  confused,  passionate,  interrupted  by  a  thousand 
different  recollections  and  emotions,  this  letter  is,  notwith- 
standing, the  most  complete  monument  of  his  genius  and 
character  which  Columbanus  has  left  to  us.  With  these 
personal  sentiments  his  concern  for  the  present  and  future 
destiny  of  his  beloved  community  of  Luxeuil  is  always 
mingled.  He  sets  forth  the  arrangements  most  likely,  as 
he  believes,  to  guarantee  its  existence,  by  purity  of  elec- 
tions and  internal  harmony.  He  seems  even  to  foresee  the 
immense  development  of  monastic  colonies  which  was  to 
proceed  from  Luxeuil,  in  a  passage  where  he  says,  "  Wher- 
ever sites  are  suitable,  wherever  God  will  build  with  you,  go 
and  multiply,  you  and  the  myriads  of  souls  which  shall  be 
born  of  you."  ^ 

It  is  specially  delightful  to  see  how,  in  that  austere  and 
proud  soul,  friendship  and  paternal  affection  preserve  all 
their  rights.  He  recalls  to  mind  with  tender  solicitude  a 
brother  who  was  not  present  at  the  moment  of  his  farewell ; 
"  Always  take  care,"  he  says,  "  of  Waldolenus,  if  he  is  still 
with  you.  May  God  give  him  everything  that  is  good :  may 
he  become  humble  :  and  give  him  for  me  the  kiss  which  I 
could  not  give  him  myself."  He  exhorts  his  monks  to  confi- 
dence, spiritual  strength,  patience,  but,  above  all,  to  peace  and 
union.  He  foresees  in  that  perpetual  question  about  Easter 
a  cause  of  division ;  and  he  desires  that  those  who  would 
disturb  the  peace  of  the  house  should  be  dismissed  from  it. 
Confessions,  counsels,  and  exhortations  crowd  upon  his  pen. 
He  sometimes  addresses  the  whole  community,  sometimes  a 
monk  called  Attains,  whom  he  had  named  as  his  successor. 

1  "Si  vero  vobis  placent,  et  Deus  illic  vobiscum  Eedificat,  crescite  ibi 
benedictione  in  mille  millia." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  269 

"  Thou  knowest,  my  well-beloved  Attains,  how  little  ad- 
vantage it  is  to  form  only  one  body  if  there  is  not  also  one 
heart,  ...  As  for  me,  my  soul  is  rent  asunder.  I  have 
desired  to  serve  everybody,  I  have  trusted  everybody,  and  it 
has  made  me  almost  mad.  Be  thou  wiser  than  I :  I  would 
not  see  thee  taking  up  the  burden  under  which  I  have 
sweated.  To  bind  all  in  the  enclosure  of  the  Rule  I  have 
attempted  to  attach  again  to  the  root  of  our  tree  all  those 
branches  whose  frailty  had  separated  them  from  mine.  .  .  . 
However,  thou  art  already  better  acquainted  with  it  than  I. 
Thou  wilt  know  how  to  adapt  its  precepts  to  each.  Thou 
wilt  take  into  account  the  great  diversity  of  character  among 
men.  Thou  wilt  then  diversify  thyself,  thou  wilt  multiply 
thyself  for  the  good  of  those  who  shall  obey  thee  with  faith 
and  love,  and  yet  must  still  fear  lest  that  very  love  should 
become  for  thee  a  danger.  But  what  is  this  that  I  do  ? 
Behold  how  I  persuade  thee  to  undertake  the  immense 
labour  from  which  I  myself  have  stolen  away  ! " 

Further  on,  grief  carries  him  away,  and  bursts  forth  only 
to  yield  immediately  to  invincible  courage :  and  the  recol- 
lections of  classic  antiquity  mingle  with  evangelical  instruc- 
tions to  dictate  to  our  Irishman  some  of  the  finest  and 
proudest  words  which  Christian  genius  has  ever  produced. 
"  I  had  at  first  meant  to  write  thee  a  letter  of  sorrow  and 
tears,  but  knowing  well  that  thy  heart  is  overwhelmed  with 
cares  and  labours,  I  have  changed  my  style,  I  have  sought 
to  dry  thy  tears  rather  than  to  call  them  forth.  I  have 
permitted  only  gentleness  to  be  seen  outside,  and  chained 
down  grief  in  the  depths  of  my  soul.  But  my  own  tears 
begin  to  flow !  I  must  drive  them  back ;  for  it  does  not 
become  a  good  soldier  to  weep  in  front  of  the  battle.  After 
all,  this  that  has  happened  to  us  is  nothing  new.  Is  it  not 
what  we  have  preached  every  day  ?  Was  there  not  of  old 
a  philosopher  wiser  than  the  others,  who  was  thrown  into 
prison  for  maintaining,  against  the  opinion  of  all,  that  there 
was  but  one  God  ?     The  Gospels  also  are  full  of  all  that  is 


2  70  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

necessary  to  encourage  us.  They  were  written  for  that 
purpose,  to  teach  the  true  disciples  of  Christ  crucified  to 
follow  Him,  bearing  their  cross.  Our  perils  are  many  :  the 
struggle  which  threatens  us  is  severe,  and  the  enemy  terrible  ; 
but  the  recompense  is  glorious,  and  the  freedom  of  our  choice 
is  manifest.  Without  adversaries,  no  conflict ;  and  without 
conflict,  no  crown.  Where  the  struggle  is,  there  is  courage, 
vigilance,  fervour,  patience,  fidelity,  wisdom,  firmness,  pru- 
dence; out  of  the  fight,  misery  and  disaster.  Thus,  then,  with- 
out war,  no  crown  !  And  I  add,  without  freedom,  no  honour  !  " 
However,  he  had  to  come  to  a  conclusion,  and  knew  not 
how  to  do  it ;  for  he  always  begins  again,  and  often  repeats 
himself.  But  others  interrupted  and  put  an  end  to  the 
outpouring  of  his  heart.  "  While  I  write,"  says  he,  "  they 
come  to  tell  me  that  the  ship  is  ready — the  ship  which  is 
to  carry  me  back  against  my  will  to  my  country.  .  .  .  The 
end  of  my  parchment  obliges  me  to  finish  my  letter.  Love 
is  not  orderly :  it  is  this  which  has  made  it  confused.  I 
would  have  abridged  everything  that  I  might  say  every- 
thing: I  have  not  succeeded.  Adieu,  dear  hearts:  pray 
for  me  that  I  may  live  in  God."  ^ 

^  "  Dulcissimis  filiis,  discentibos  carissimis,  fratribus  frugalibus,  cunctis 
simul  monachis.  .  .  .  Semper  Waldolenum  tene  .  .  .  humilis  fiat  :  et  meum 
illi  da  osculum  quod  tunc  festinans  non  habuit.  .  .  .  Tu  scis,  amantissime 
Attale  .  .  .  quid  enim  prodest  habere  corpus,  et  non  habere  cor?  .  .  . 
Dum  volui  totos  adjuvare  .  .  .  et  dum  omnibus  credidi  pene,  factus  sum 
stultus.  Ideo  tu  23rudentior  esto  :  nolo  subeas  tantum  onus,  sub  quo  ego 
sudavi.  .  .  .  Ergo  diversus  esto,  et  multiplex  ad  curam  eorum,  qui  tibi 
obedierint  cum  fide  et  amore :  sed  tu  et  ipsum  eorum  time  amorem,  quia 
tibi  periculosus  erit.  .  .  .  Lacrymosam  tibi  volui  scribere  epistolam :  sed 
quia  scio  cor  tuum  idcirco  necessariis  tantum  allegatis,  duris  et  ipsis 
arduisque,  altero  stylo  usus  sum,  malens  obturare  quam  provocare  lacry- 
mas.  Foris  itaque  actus  est  sermo  mitis,  intus  inclusus  est  dolor.  En 
promanant  lacrymse  ;  sed  melius  es  obturare  fontem  :  non  enim  fortis  est 
militis  plorare.  Non  est  hoc  novum  quod  nobis  conligit  :  hoc  maxima 
quotidie  preedicabamus.  Quidam  philosophus  olim,  sapientior  ceteris,  eo 
quod  contra  omnium  opinionem  unum  Deum  esse  dixerit,  in  carcerem 
trusus  est.  Evangelia  plena  sunt  de  hac  causa  et  inde  sunt  maxime  con- 
scripta  :  hsec  est  enim  Veritas  Evangelii,  ut  vere  Christi  crucifixi  discipuli 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  27 1 

The  bishop  and  count  of  Nantes  hastened  the  departure ; 
but  the  Irish  vessel  in  which  the  property  and  companions 
of  Columbanus  were  embarked,  and  to  which  he  was  to  go 
in  a  boat,  being  then  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire,  was  cast 
back  by  the  waves,  and  remained  three  days  ashore  upon 
the  beach.  Then  the  captain  landed  the  monks  and  all 
that  belonged  to  them,  and  continued  his  voyage,  Colum- 
banus was  permitted  to  go  where  he  would. 

He  directed  his  steps  towards  the  court  of  the  king  of 
Soissons  and  Neustria,  Clotaire  II,,  who,  after  an  unfortunate 
war  with  the  kings  of  Austrasia  and  Burgundy,  had  been 
despoiled  of  the  greater  part  of  Neustria,  and  reduced  to 
the  possession  of  twelve  counties  between  the  right  bank  of 
the  Seine  and  the  Channel,^  This  son  of  Fredegund,  faith- 
ful to  his  mother's  hatred  for  Brunehault  and  her  family, 
gave  a  cordial  reception  to  the  victim  of  his  enemy,  en- 
deavoured to  retain  him  in  his  court,  received  with  a  good 
grace  the  remonstrances  which  the  undaunted  apostle,  always 
faithful  to  his  part  of  public  censor,  addressed  to  him  upon 
the  disorders  of  his  court,  and  promised  amendment.  He 
consulted  Columbanus  about  the  quarrel  which  had  broken 
out  between  the  two  brothers,  Theodebert  and  Thierry,  both 
of  whom  asked  his  assistance,  Columbanus  advised  him  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  since  in  three  years  both  their 
kingdoms  would  fall  into  his  power.  He  afterwards  asked 
an  escort  to  conduct  him  to  Theodebert,  king  of  Metz,  or 

enm  seqnantur  cum  cruce.  .  .  .  Malta  carne  pericula :  cognosce  causam 
belli,  glorias  magnitudinem,  fortem  non  nescias  hostem,  et  libertatem  in 
medio  arbitrii.  ...  Si  tollis  hostem,  tollis  et  pugnam.  Si  tollis  pugnam, 
toUis  et  coronam.  ...  Si  tollis  libertatem,  tollis  dignitatem.  .  .  .  Nunc 
mihi  scribenti  nuncius  supervenit,  narrans  mihi  navem  parari.  Amor  non 
tenet  ordinem  ;  inde  missa  confusa  est.  Totum  dicere  volui  in  brevi, 
Totum  non  potui.  .  .  .  Orate  pro  me,  viscera  mea,  ut  Deo  vivam." — 
Epist.,  iv.,  ap.  GallanduS,  BM.  Veter.  Patruvi,  t.  xii.  p.  349. 

1  Thierry  had  added,  on  that  occasion,  all  the  country  between  Seine 
and  Loire  to  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Orleans  and  Burgundy.  This  ex- 
plains why  his  authority  was  recognised  in  all  the  countries  traversed  by 
Columbanus  even  to  Nantes. 


272  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

Austrasia,  whose  states  he  desired  to  cross  on  his  way  to 
Italy.  Passing  through  Paris,  Meaux,  and  Champagne,  the 
chief  of  the  Frank  nobility  brought  their  children  to  him, 
and  he  blessed  many,  destined,  as  shall  be  seen,  to  inherit 
his  spirit  and  extend  his  work.  Theodebert,  now  at  war 
with  his  brother  Thierry,  gave  the  exiled  abbot  the  same 
reception  as  Clotaire  II.  had  done,  but  was  equally  unsuc- 
cessful in  retaining  him. 

At  the  court  of  the  king  of  Austrasia,  which  was  not  far 
from  Burgundy,  he  had  the  consolation  of  seeing  several  of 
his  brethren  of  Luxeuil,  who  escaped  to  rejoin  him.  At 
their  head,  and  encouraged  by  the  promises  and  eager  pro- 
tection of  Theodebert,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  preach  the 
faith  among  the  still  pagan  nations  who  were  subject  to  the 
Austrasian  government,  and  inhabited  the  countries  about 
the  Rhine.  This  had  always  been  his  ambition,  his  incli- 
nation, and  the  work  he  preferred.^  After  sixty  years  of 
labour  devoted  to  the  reform  of  kings  and  nations  already 
Christian,  he  began  the  second  phase  of  his  life — that  of 
preaching  to  the  infidels. 

He  consequently  embarked  upon  the  Rhine,  below  May- 
ence,  and  ascending  this  river  and  its  tributaries  as  far  as 
the  Lake  of  Zurich,  remained  for  some  time  at  Tuggen,^ 
and  at  Arbon,  finding  here  and  there  some  traces  of  Chris- 
tianity sown  under  the  Roman  or  Prank  government,^  and 

1  "  Mei  voti  fuit  gentes  visitare  et  Evangelium  eis  a  nobis  prsedicari  : 
sed  fel  modo  referente  eorum  teporcm,  pene  meum  tulit  inde  amorem." 
— Epist.  ad  Fratres. 

2  The  new  BoUandists  (t.  vii.  Oct.,  p.  S70)  prove  that  this  was  not  at 
Zug,  as  all  former  historians  have  said,  but  at  Tuggen,  which  is  situated 
at  the  point  where  the  Limmat  enters  the  Lake  of  Zurich,  and  which 
answers  to  the  description  of  the  hagiographer :  "Ad  caput  lacus,  in 
locum  qui  Tucconia  dicitur." — Vit.  S.  Oalli,  c.  4. 

3  We  shall  be  pardoned  for  not  giving  the  legend  of  St.  Fridolin,  another 
Irish  monk,  to  whom  was  attributed  a  first  mission  into  Alamannia  and 
the  foundation  of  Soeckingen,  on  the  Rhine,  between  Bale  and  Schaff- 
hausen.  Compare  Mabillon,  Ann.  Bened.,  t.  i.  p.  221,  and  Rettbeeg, 
t.  ii.  p.  33- 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  273 

established  himself  finally  at  Bregentz,  upon  the  Lake  of 
Constance,  amid  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  Eoman  town.      The 
Sueves  and  Alamans   (Alamanni),   subject  to  the   Franks 
since  the  victory  of  Clovis  at  Tolbiac,  who  then  occupied 
all  Eastern  Helvetia,   were,   with   all   the   country  between 
the  Aar,  the  Alps,  and  the  Lech,  idolaters,  worshippers  of 
the  god  Woden,  and  of  violent  and  cruel  disposition.      In 
/  announcing  the  Gospel  to  them,  Columbanus  displayed  all 
'    the  impetuosity  of  his  temper,  which  age  had  not  lessened. 
His  principal  assistant  was  another  Irishman  named  Gall, 
j    who  was  not  less  daring  than  himself,  but  who  was  well 
educated,  and  had  the  gift  of  preaching  in  the  German  lan- 
guage as  well  as  in  the  Latin.      Sometimes  they  broke  the 
boilers  in  which  the  pagans  prepared  beer,^  to  offer  as  a 
j  sacrifice  to  Woden ;    sometimes  they  burned  the  temples, 
and  threw  into  the  lake  the  gilded  idols  whom  the  inhabi- 
tants showed  them  as  the  tutelary  gods  of  their  country. 
Such  proceedings  naturally  excited  against  them  the  fury 
of  the  natives,  and  exposed  them  to  great  dangers.      They 
had  to  flee  to  Zug,  from  which  they  were  expelled  with  blows. 
At  Bregentz  they  had  more  success,  and  made  some  con- 
versions, but  without  appeasing  the   rage,   or  conciliating 
the  liking,  of  the  mass  of  the  people.     The  little  colony, 
however,   remained  there  for  three  years.      They  resumed 
cenobitical    life.      They   had    at   first    to    contend    against 
I  hunger :    for   the    inhabitants    would    give    them    nothing. 
,  They  had   to    live   upon  wild   birds,  which    came   to   them 
I  like  the  manna  to  the  children  of  Israel,  or  upon  woodland 
I  fruits,  which  they  had  to  dispute  with  the  beasts  of  the 
I  forests.      But  they  had  soon  a  garden  of  vegetables    and 

^  The  Italian  monk  who  has  written  the  life  of  Columbanus  speaks  else- 
where of  beer  as  the  national  drink  of  the  races  which  were  not  Roman  : 
"Cerevisia  quaj  ex  frumenti  et  hordei  succo  excoquitur,  quamque  prse 
cajteris  in  orbe  terrarum  gentibus,  prajter  Scoticas  et  barbaras  gentes 
jquas  oceanum  incolunt,  usitatur  in  Gallia,  Britannia,  Hibernia,  Germania, 
Ic^tersique  quaj  ab  eorum  moribus  non  desiscant."— Compare  Vit.  S.  Sala- 
ihergcB,  c.  19,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  ii.  407. 

VOL.  II.  S 


274  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

fruit-trees.  Fish  was  also  a  resource  ;  Colurabanus  himself 
made  the  nets ;  Gall,  the  learned  and  eloquent  preacher, 
threw  them  into  the  lake,  and  had  considerable  draughts. 
One  night,  while  he  watched  in  silence  in  his  boat  among 
his  nets,  he  heard  the  demon  of  the  mountain  call  to  the 
demon  of  the  waters.  "  Here  I  am,"  answered  the  latter. 
"  Arise,  then,"  said  the  first,  "  and  help  me  to  chase  away 
the  strangers  who  have  expelled  me  from  my  temple ;  it 
will  require  us  both  to  drive  them  away,"  "  What  good 
should  we  do  ?  "  answered  the  demon  of  the  waters ;  "  here 
is  one  of  them  upon  the  waterside  whose  nets  I  have  tried 
to  break,  but  I  have  never  succeeded.  He  prays  continu- 
ally, and  never  sleeps.  It  will  be  labour  in  vain  ;  we  shall 
make  nothing  of  it."  Then  Gall  made  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
and  said  to  them,  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  command 
you  to  leave  these  regions  without  daring  to  injure  any 
one."  Then  he  hastened  to  land  and  awoke  the  abbot,  who 
immediately  rang  the  bells  for  nocturnal  service  ;  but  before 
the  first  psalm  had  been  intoned,  they  heard  the  yells  of 
the  demons  echoing  from  the  top  of  the  surrounding  hills, 
at  first  with  fury,  then  losing  themselves  in  the  distance,  and 
dying  away  like  the  confused  voices  of  a  routed  army.'^ 

1  "  Isti  sunt  dii  veteres,  et  antiqui  hujus  locis  tutores.  .  .  .  Non  solum 
latinse,  sed  etiam  barbaricae  sermonis  cognitionem  non  parvam  habebat, 
.  .  .  Ira  et  furore  commoti,  gravi  indignationis  rabie  turbidi  recesserunt. 
.  .  .  Audivit  da?monem  de  culmine  montis  pari  suo  clamantem  qui  erat  in 
abditis  maris,  quo  respondente  :  Adsum :  Montanus  .  .  .  Consurge  .  .  . 
in  adjutorium  mihi.  .  .  .  Heus  quod  de  tuis  calamitatibus  narras.  .  .  . 
En  unus  illorum  est  in  pelago  cui  nunquam  nocere  potero.  .  .  .  Auditse 
sunt  dirEe  voces  dasmonorum  per  montium  summitates,  et  quasi  disceden- 
tium  ejulatus  cum  terrore  confusus." — Walafr.  Strabo.,  Vit.  S.  Galli, 
c.  4,  6,  7,  ap.  Peetz,  Monumenta,  ii.  7;  Bolland.,  t.  vii.  Oct.,  p.  884; 
Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  ii.  221.  Compare  Jonas,  c.  54,  55  ;  Kbmble,  Saxons  in 
England,  t.  i.  p.  380;  lastly,  OzANAM,  Etudes  Gcrmaniques,  ii.  122,  who,  as 
usual,  has  completely  and  nobly  discussed  the  mission  of  Columbanus  and 
his  companions  in  Helvetia.  The  monastery  of  Mehrerau,  which  Colum- 
banus founded  afc  the  gates  of  the  present  town  of  Bregenz,  has  just  been 
re-established  by  a  colony  of  Cistercians,  unworthily  expelled  by  the 
Argovian  Radicals  from  their  secular  patrimony  at  Wettingen,  near  Aarau. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  275 

To  this  fine  legend,  which  depicts  so  well  all  that  could 
move  the  soul  of  these  intrepid  missionaries  upon  a  coast  so 
long  inhospitable,  we  must  add  the  vision  which  deterred 
Columbanus  from  undertaking  a  still  more  distant  and  diffi- 
cult mission.  He  was  pursued  by  the  thought  of  bearing 
the  light  of  the  Gospel  among  the  Sclave  nations,  and 
especially  among  the  Weudes,  whose  country  extended  into 
the  midst  of  the  Germanic  races,  and  to  the  south  of  the 
Danube.  Like  St.  Patrick,  the  remembrance  of  the  nations 
who  knew  not  Christ  pursued  him  into  his  sleep.  One 
night  he  saw  in  a  dream  an  angel,  who  said  to  him,  "The 
world  is  before  thee ;  take  the  right  hand  or  the  left  hand, 
but  turn  not  aside  from  thy  road,  if  thou  wouldst  eat  the 
fruit  of  thy  labours."  ^  He  interpreted  this  dream  into  a 
sign  that  he  should  have  no  success  in  the  enterprise  of 
which  he  dreamed,  and  accordingly  abandoned  it. 

The  Sclaves  formed,  as  is  well  known,  with  the  Celts  and 
Germans,  the  third  of  the  great  races  which  occupied  Central 
Europe.  If  Columbanus,  a  Celt  by  origin  and  education, 
but  a  monk  and  missionary  for  almost  all  his  life  among  the 
Germans,  had  entered  the  countries  already  invaded  by 
Sclavonian  tribes,  his  influence  would  have  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  all  the  families  of  nations  who  have  predominated 
in  modern  Christendom.  This  glory  was  denied  to  him  :  it 
was  enough  for  him  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
I  of  those  intermediary  agents  who  have  laboured  under  the 
impulse  of  Christianity  for  the  fusion  of  the  two  greatest 
races  of  the  West. 

During  this  sojourn  at  Bregentz,  our  saint  went,  it  is  not 
known  on  what  occasion,  to  see  King  Theodebert,  who  was 
still  at  war  with  his  brother,  the  king  of  Burgundy.  En- 
lightened by  a  presentiment,  and  inspired  by  gratitude  to 
this   young   prince,   he   counselled  him  to    yield,  and  take 

^  "Cogitatio  in  mentem  ruit,  ut  Venetiorum,  qui  et  Sclavi  dicuntur, 
jterminos  adiret.  .  .  .  Cernis  quod  maneat  totus  orbis  descriptus  ? " — 
lTgnas,  c.  56.     Wendes  are  still  to  be  found  in  Styria  and  Carinthia. 


276  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

refuge  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  by  becoming  a  monk, 
instead  of  risking  at  once  his  kingdom  and  his  salvation. 
Theodebert  had,  besides,  great  need  of  expiating  his  sins : 
very  profligate,  like  all  the  Merovingians,  he  had  just  killed 
Queen  Bilichild,  a  young  slave  whom  his  grandmother 
Brunehault  had  made  him  marry  in  his  youth,  in  order  to 
be  able  to  take  another  wife.  The  advice  of  Columbanus 
caused  great  laughter  to  the  king  and  all  the  Franks  who 
surrounded  him.  "  Such  a  thing  has  never  been  heard  of," 
said  they,  "  as  that  a  Frank  king  should  become  a  monk  of 
his  own  free  will."  "  Well,"  said  Columbanus,  in  the  middle 
of  their  exclamations,  "  if  he  will  not  be  a  monk  of  free  will, 
he  will  be  one  by  force."  ^  Saying  this,  the  saint  returned 
to  his  cell  on  the  banks  of  Lake  Constance.  He  learned 
soon  after  that  his  persecutor,  Thierry,  had  again  invaded 
the  states  of  his  protector  Theodebert,  and  had  routed  and 
pursued  the  latter  to  the  gates  of  Cologne.  The  decisive 
battle  between  the  two  brothers  took  place  on  the  plains  of 
Tolbiac,  where  their  great-grandfather  Clovis  had  founded, 
by  victory,  the  Christian  kingdom  of  the  Franks.^  Theo- 
debert was  vanquished  and  taken  :  Thierry  sent  him  to  the 
implacable  Brunehault,  who  had  long  disowned  him  as  her 
grandson,  and  who,  still  furious  at  her  expulsion  from  the 
kingdom  of  Austrasia,  had  his  head  shaved,  made  him  assume 
the  monastic  dress,  and  shortly  after  put  him  to  death. 

At  the  time  when  the  second  battle  of  Tolbiac  was  going 
on,  Columbanus  was  wandering  in  a  wood  near  his  retreat 
with  his  favourite  disciple  Cagnoald,  a  young  and  noble 
Frank,  son  of  one  of  the  principal  leudes  of  Theodebert, 
whom  he  had  brought  with  him  from  the  neighbourhood  of 

1  "  Ridiculum  excitavit :  aiebant  emm  nunquam  se  audiisse  Merovingum 
in  regno  sublimatum  voluntarinm  clericum  fuisse.  Detestantibus  ergo 
omnibus."— Jonas,  c.  57.  This  recalls  the  words  of  Childebert,  quoted 
by  Gregory  of  Tours :  "  Was  ever  a  Merovingian  shaven  ? "  and  the  famous 
saying  of  Clotilde  concerning  her  grandsons  :  "Better  that  they  be  dead 
than  shaven."     See  the  preceding  Book,  p.  140,  note. 

2  Henki  Martin,  ii.  118. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  277 

Meanx.  As  he  was  reading,  seated  upon  the  fallen  trunk 
of  an  old  oak,  he  slept,  and  saw  in  a  dream  the  two  brothers 
coming  to  blows.  At  his  waking  he  told  his  companion 
of  this  vision,  sighing  over  all  that  bloodshed.  The  son  of 
Theodebert's  minister  answered  him,  "  But,  dear  father,  help 
Theodebert  with  your  prayers,  that  he  may  overcome  Thierry, 
your  common  enemy."  Columbanus  answered  him,  "Thou 
givest  me  a  foolish  counsel ;  not  such  was  the  will  of  our 
I   Lord,  who  commands  us  to  pray  for  our  enemies."  ^ 

However,  the  whole  of  Austrasia  had  fallen  by  the  death 
of  Theodebert  into  the  hands  of  Brunehault  and  Thierry, 
and  the  banks  of  the  upper  Rhine,  where  their  victim  had 
j  found  a  refuge,  was  a  dependency  of  the  Austrasian  king- 
dom.    Besides,  the  inhabitants  of  the  environs  of  Bregentz, 
/always  irritated    by   the  violent  destruction  of  their  idols, 
complained  to  the  duke  of  the  province  that  these  strangers 
scared  the  game  of  the  royal  chase,  by  infesting  the  forests 
with  their  presence.      Their   cows  were  stolen,  two  of  the 
monks  were  even  slain  in  an  ambuscade.      It  was  necessary 
to    depart.      Columbanus   said,   "We  have  found  a  golden 
cup,  but  it  is  full  of  serpents.      The  God  whom  we  serve 
will   lead   us   elsewhere."      He  had  long  desired  to  go  to 
Italy,  and  reckoned  on   a  good  reception  from  the  king  of 
j  the  Lombards.     At  the  moment  of  departure,  the  fiery  Gall, 
I  seized  with  fever,  asked  leave  to  remain,      Columbanus  was 
I  irritated   by   this   weakness.      "  Ah,    my  brother,"   said  he, 
"  art  thou  already  disgusted  with  the  labours  I  have  made 
thee  endure  ?      But  since  thou   wilt  separate  thyself  from 
me,  I  debar  thee,  as  long  as  I  live,  from  saying  mass."^ 
Poor  Gall  did  not  deserve  these  reproaches :  he  remained  in 
Helvetia,  as  will  be  seen,  only  to  redouble  the  zeal  of  his 

^  "Super  quercus  putrefactfe  truncum  librum  legens  residebat.  .  .  , 
Pater  mi  .  .  ,  ut  communem  debellet  hostem." — Jonas,  57. 

^  *'  Discentes  venationem  publicam  propter  illorum  infestationem  pere- 
grinorum  esse  turbatam.  .  .  .  Invenimus  .  .  .  concham  auream,  sed  vene- 
natisser  pentibus  plenam.  .  ,  .  Scio,  frater,  jam  tibi  oneiosum  esse  tantis 
pro  me  laboribus  fatigari."— Fz'ia  S.  Galli,  c.  8,  9. 


2  78  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

apostolic  labours,  and  to  found  there  one  of  the  most  cele- 
brated monasteries  in  Christendom. 

Oolumbanus  kept  with  him  only  a  single  disciple,  Attalus, 
and,  notwithstanding,  pursued  his  journey  across  the  Alps. 
When  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  fatigues  and  dangers  of 
such  an  undertaking  in  the  days  of  Columbanus,  we  imagine 
that  it  was  the  image  and  recollection  of  this  course  which 
inspired  the  beginning  of  one  of  the  instructions  addressed 
to  his  monks,  in  which  the  unwearied  traveller  compares  life 
to  a  journey. 

"  Oh  mortal  life  !  how  many  hast  thou  deceived,  seduced, 
and  blinded  !  Thou  fliest  and  art  nothing ;  thou  appearest 
and  art  but  a  shade ;  thou  risest  and  art  but  a  vapour ; 
thou  fliest  every  day,  and  every  day  thou  comest ;  thou  fliest 
in  coming,  and  comest  in  flying,  the  same  at  the  point 
of  departure,  different  at  the  end ;  sweet  to  the  foolish, 
bitter  to  the  wise ;  those  who  love  thee  know  thee  not,  and 
those  only  know  thee  who  despise  thee.  What  art  thou,  then, 
oh  human  life  ?  Thou  art  the  way  of  mortals  and  not  their 
life ;  thou  beginnest  in  sin  and  endest  in  death.  Thou  art 
then  the  way  of  life  and  not  life  itself.  Thou  art  only  a  road, 
and  an  unequal  road,  long  for  some,  short  for  others ;  wide 
for  these,  narrow  for  those ;  joyous  for  some,  sad  for  others, 
but  for  all  equally  rapid  and  without  return.  It  is  necessary, 
then,  oh  miserable  human  life  !  to  fathom  thee,  to  ques- 
tion thee,  but  not  to  trust  in  thee.  We  must  traverse  thee 
without  dwelling  in  thee — no  one  dwells  upon  a  great  road  : 
we  but  march  on  through  it,  to  reach  the  country  beyond."  ^ 

The  king  of  the  Lombards  was  that  Agilulf,  of  whom  we 
have  already  had  occasion  to  speak  in  connection  with  St. 
Gregory  the  Great ;  his  wife  was  Theodelind,  the  noble  rival 
of  Clotilde.      He  received  the  venerable  exile  with  respect 

1  "  NuUus  enim  in  via  habitat,  sed  ambulat  :  ut  qui  ambulant  in  via 
habitent  in  patria." — Instructio  v.,  Quod  prcesens  vita  non  sit  dicenda  Vita, 
sed  Via.  I  borrow  this  translation,  completing  it,  from  the  Vie  des  Saints 
de  Franche-Comte,  t.  ii.  p.  91. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  279 

and  confidence ;  and  Columbanus  had  scarcely  arrived  in 
Milan  when  he  immediately  began  to  write  against  the 
Arians,  for  this  fatal  heresy  still  predominated  among  the 
Lombards ;  those  who  had  not  remained  pagan,  especially 
among  the  nobles,  had  fallen  victims  to  Arianism.  The 
Irish  apostle  thus  found  a  new  occupation  for  his  missionary 
zeal,  which  he  could  pursue  successfully  without  giving  up 
his  love  for  solitude.  Agilulf  bestowed  upon  him  a  territory 
called  Bobbio,  situated  in  a  retired  gorge  of  the  Apennines 
between  Genoa  and  Milan,  not  far  from  the  famous  shores 
of  Trebbia,  where  Hannibal  encamped  and  vanquished  the 
Romans.  An  old  church,  dedicated  to  St.  Peter,  was  in 
existence  there.  Columbanus  undertook  to  restore  it,  and 
to  add  to  it  a  monastery.  Despite  his  age,  he  shared  in 
the  workmen's  labours,  and  bent  his  old  shoulders  under 
the  weight  of  enormous  beams  of  fir- wood,  which  it  seemed 
impossible  to  transport  across  the  precipices  and  perpen- 
dicular paths  of  these  mountains.  This  abbey  of  Bobbio 
was  his  last  stage.  He  made  it  the  citadel  of  orthodoxy 
against  the  Arians,  and  lighted  there  a  focus  of  knowledge 
and  instruction  which  was  long  the  light  of  northern  Italy.-^ 
There,  as  everywhere,  and  throughout  all  his  life,  our 
saint  continued  to  cultivate  those  literary  studies  which  had 
charmed  his  youth.  At  sixty-eight  he  addressed  to  a  friend 
an  epistle  in  Adonic  verse,  which  everywhere  bears  the  im- 
pression of  those  classic  recollections  which  the  monks  of 
that  period  cultivated.  He  prays  him  not  to  despise  "  these 
little  verses  by  which  Sappho,  the  illustrious  muse,  loved  to 
charm  her  contemporaries,  and  to  prefer  for  a  moment  these 

1  "  Turn  per  prserupta  saxorum  scopula  trabes  ex  abietibus  inter  densa 
saltus  locis  inaccessibilibus  cjederentur.  .  .  .  Suis  ac  suorum  humeris 
immane  pondus  imponebat."— Jonas,  c.  60.  The  school  and  library  of 
Bobbio  rank  among  the  most  celebrated  of  the  middle  ages.  Muratori  has 
given  a  catalogue  of  700  manuscripts  which  they  possessed  in  the  tenth 
century.  Thence  came  the  famous  palimpsest  from  which  Cardinal  Mai 
has  taken  the  Dc  Repuhlica  of  Cicero.  The  monastery  was  only  suppressed 
under  the  French  dominion  in  1803  :  the  church  still  subsists,  and  serves 
as  a  parish  church. 


2  8o  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

frivolous  trifles  to  the  most  learned  productions."^  He 
appeals  to  the  recollections  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  of  the 
judgment  of  Paris,  of  Danae's  shower  of  gold,  and  of  the 
collar  of  Amphiaralis.  Then  his  thoughts  grew  sober  as 
they  rose.  "  Thus  I  wrote,  overwhelmed  by  the  cruel  pains 
of  my  weak  body,  and  by  age,  for,  while  the  times  hasten 
their  course,  I  have  reached  the  eighteenth  olympiad  of  my 
life.  Everything  passes,  and  the  irreparable  days  fly  away. 
Live,  be  strong,  be  happy,  and  remind  yourself  of  sad  old 
age."' 

To  this  last  period  of  his  life  also  belongs  that  letter,  so 
differently  interpreted,  which  he  wrote  to  Pope  Boniface  IV. 
in  the  name  of  King  Agilulf,  who  had  scarcely  escaped  from 
the  bonds  of  Arianism,  when  he  unluckily  undertook  to  protect 
the  partisans  of  the  Three  Chapters,  who  called  in  question 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  Holy  See,  which,  according  to  their 
view,  had  placed  itself  in  opposition  to  a  General  Council.^ 
Columbanus  wrote  from  the  midst  of  a  mixed  population  of 
orthodox  and  schismatics,  of  heretics  and  even  of  pagans. 
Evidently  little  acquainted  in  his  own  person  with  the  point 
at  issue,  he  made  himself  the  organ  of  the  restlessness  and 

^    "  Inclyta  vates 
Nomine  Saplio 
Versibus  istis 
Dulce  solebat 
Edere  Carmen. 
.  .  .  Doctiloquorum 
Carmina  linquens, 
Frivola  nostra 
Suscipe  Isetus." 

2  Translation  by  Ozanam. 

3  The  Three  Chapters  (three  works  by  Theodore  of  Mopsueste,  Ibas,  and 
Theodoret  were  thus  named)  had  been  condemned  as  Ncstorian  by  the 
Council  of  Constantinople  (5th  oecumenical)  in  553,  and  by  Pope  Vigilant : 
a  condemnation  resisted  by  the  bishops  of  Africa  and  Istria  as  throwing 
discredit  on  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  which  had,  according  to  them, 
approved  of  these  writings.  The  Lombards  declared  for  these  bishops,  who 
were  tolerated  by  Gregory  the  Great  on  account  of  their  zeal  against  the 
Arians  ;  but  under  Boniface  IV.  the  quarrel  was  revived.  Agilulf  and 
Theodelind  engaged  Columbanus  in  it. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  28 1 

defiance  of  the  party  which  assumed  to  be  the  only  one 
faithful  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  against 
the  error  of  Eutychus.  While  he  appeals,  in  a  series  of 
extravagant  and  obscure  apostrophes,  to  the  indulgence  of 
the  pope  for  b.  foolish  Scot,  charged  to  write  on  account  of  a 
Lombard,  a  king  of  the  Gentiles,  he  acquaints  the  pontiff 
with  the  imputations  brought  against  him,  and  entreats  him 
to  prove  his  orthodoxy  and  excommunicate  his  detractors/ 
Doubtless  some  of  the  expressions  which  he  employs  would 
be  now  regarded  as  disrespectful  and  justly  rejected.  But 
in  these  young  and  vigorous  times,  faith  and  austerity  could 
be  more  indulgent.  If  his  letter  is  impressed  with  all  the 
frankness  and  independence  of  the  Celt,  of  the  Briton,  a 
little  too  biting,^  as  he  says  himself,  it  breathes  also  the 
tender  and  filial  devotion  of  a  Roman,  impassioned  in  his 
anxiety  for  the  honour  of  the  Holy  See.  Let  it  be  judged 
by  this  fragment :  "  I  confess  that  I  lament  over  the  bad 
reputation  of  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  in  this  country.  I  speak 
to  you  not  as  a  stranger,  but  as  a  disciple,  as  a  friend,  as  a 
servant.  I  speak  freely  to  our  masters,  to  the  pilots  of  the 
vessel  of  the  Church,  and  I  say  to  them,  Watch  !  and  despise 
not  the  humble  advice  of  the  stranger.  We  Irish,  who 
inhabit  the  extremities  of  the  world,  are  the  disciples  of 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  of  the  other  apostles  who  have 
written  under  dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  receive 
nothing  more  than  the  apostolic  and  evangelical  doctrine. 
There  has  never  been  either  a  heretic,  a  Jew,  or  a  schis- 
matic among  us.  The  people  whom  I  see  here,  who  bear 
the  burden  of  many  heretics,  are  jealous  ;  they  disturb  them- 
selves like  a  frightened  flock.  Pardon  me  then,  if,  swimming 
among  these  rocks,  I  have  said  some  words  offensive  to  pious 
ears.      The   native   liberty   of  my  race    has   given  me  that 

1  "Quando  rex  gen  tills  peregrinum  scribere,  Longobardus,  Scotum 
hebetem  rogat  .  .  ,  quis  non  mirabitur  potiusquam  calumniabitur.  ' — 
Epist.  V.  ad  Bonif,  Pap.,  ed.  GALLAND.,  p.  355. 

2  "Mordacius." 


2  82  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

boldness.  With  ns  it  is  not  the  person,  it  is  the  right 
which  prevails.  The  love  of  evangelical  peace  makes  me 
say  everything.  We  are  bound  to  the  chair  of  St.  Peter ; 
for  however  great  and  glorious  Rome  may  be,  it  is  this  chair 
which  makes  her  great  and  glorious  among  us.  Although 
the  name  of  the  ancient  city,  the  glory  of  Ausonia,  has  been 
spread  throughout  the  world  as  something  supremely  august, 
by  the  too  great  admiration  of  the  nations,  for  us  you  are 
only  august  and  great  since  the  incarnation  of  God,  since 
the  Spirit  of  God  has  breathed  upon  us,  and  since  the  Son  of 
God,  in  His  car  drawn  by  these  two  ardent  coursers  of  God, 
Peter  and  Paul,  has  crossed  the  oceans  of  nations  to  come 
to  us.  Still  more,  because  of  the  two  great  apostles  of 
Christ,  you  are  almost  celestial,  and  Rome  is  the  head  of  the 
Churches  of  the  whole  world,  excepting  only  the  prerogative 
of  the  place  of  divine  resurrection."  ^ 

The  generous  fervour  of  that  Irish  race,  justly  proud  of 
having  never  known  the  yoke  of  pagan  Rome,  and  of  having 
waited,  before  recognising  her  supremacy,  till  she  had  become 
the  Rome  of  the  apostles  and  martyrs,  has  never  been  ex- 
pressed with  more  poetic  energy. 

But  whilst  the  unwearied  missionary  had  thus  recom- 
menced in  Italy  his  career  as  a  preacher  and  monastic 
founder,  everything  was  changed  among  the  Franks  to  whom 
he  had  devoted  the  half  of  his  life.      At  the  moment  when 

^  "  Doleo  enim,  fateor,  de  infamia  cathedrae  S.  Petri.  .  .  .  Ego  enim  ut 
amicus,  ut  discipulus,  ut  pedissequus  vester,  non  ut  alienus  loquar :  ideo 
libere  eloquar  nostris  utpote  magistris,  ac  spiritualis  navis  gubernatoribus, 
ac  mysticis  proretis  dicens  :  Vigilate.  .  .  .  Noli  despicere  consiliolum 
alienigenas.  .  .  .  NuUus  hEereticus,  nuUus  judseus,  nullus  schismaticus  fuit. 
.  .  .  Populus  quem  video,  dum  multos  haereticos  sustinet,  zelosus  est,  et 
cito  tanquam  grex  pavidus  turbatur.  .  .  .  Libertas  paternte  consuetudinis, 
ut  ita  dicam,  me  audere  ex  parte  facit.  Non  enim  apud  nos  persona,  sed 
ratio  valet :  amor  pacis  evangelicse  totum  me  dicere  cogit.  ...  In  duobus 
illis  ferventissimis  Dei  spiritus  equis,  Petro  et  Paulo  .  .  .  per  mare  gentium 
equitans,  turbavit  aquas  multus  .  .  .  et  supremus  ille  auriga  currus  illius 
qui  est  Christus  ...  ad  nos  usque  pervenit.  Ex  tunc  vos  magni  estis  et 
clari  .  .  .  et,  si  dici  potest,  propter  geminos  apostolos  .  .  .  vos  prope 
ccelestes  estis  et  Roma  orbis  terrarum  caput  est  Ecclesiarum.  .  .  ." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  283 

the  victorious  persecutor  of  Columbanus  seemed  at  the  climax 
of  his  fortune,  when  he  had  joined  the  immense  domains  of 
the  Austrasian  kingdom  to  his  own  kingdom  of  Orleans  and 
Burgundy,  and  when  he  had  only  the  little  state  of  Clotaire 
left  to  conquer,  in  order  to  reign  over  all  Gaul  and  Frankish 
Germany,  King  Thierry  suddenly  died  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
six.  In  vain  did  Brunehault  essay  to  renew  her  reign  in 
the  name  of  her  great-grandson,  the  young  Sigebert,  the 
eldest  of  Thierry's  children :  the  leudes  of  Austrasia,  who 
could  never  tolerate  her  haughty  rule,  and  first  among  them 
the  powerful  chief  Pepin,  from  whom  the  Carlovingian  race 
proceeded,  declared  themselves  against  her.  They  leagued 
themselves  on  one  side  with  the  leudes  of  Burgundy,  on  the 
other  with  Clotaire  and  his  Neustrians,  and  called  the  latter 
to  reign  over  them.  Brunehault  and  the  four  sons  of 
Thierry  were  delivered  up  to  him.  He  slaughtered  the  two 
eldest,  and  showed  himself  the  worthy  son  of  Fredegund  by 
the  atrocious  sufferings  which  he  inflicted  upon  her  septua- 
genarian rival.  Clotaire  II.,  when  he  had  become  by  all 
these  crimes  the  sole  king  of  the  Franks  and  master  of 
Austrasia  and  Burgundy  as  well  as  Neustria,  remembered 
the  prediction  of  Columbanus,  and  desired  to  see  once  more 
the  saint  who  had  prophesied  so  truly.  He  charged  Eustace, 
who  had  succeeded  him  as  abbot  at  Luxeuil,  to  go  and  seek 
his  spiritual  father,  and  sent  with  him  a  deputation  of 
nobles,  as  a  security  for  the  good  intentions  of  the  king. 
Columbanus  received  Eustace  gladly,  and  kept  his  visitor 
with  him  for  some  time  that  he  might  make  him  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  spirit  of  the  rule,  which  he  was  to 
establish  among  the  "  monastic  nation "  at  Luxeuil.  But 
he  declined  to  answer  the  call  of  Clotaire :  we  would  fain 
believe  that  all  the  innocent  blood  which  that  king  had  spilt 
had  something  to  do  with  this  refusal ;  but  there  is  nothing 
to  prove  it.  The  abbot  confined  himself  to  writing  him  a 
letter  full  of  good  advice,  which,  it  must  be  allowed,  he  had 
great  need  of,  and  recommending  to  him  his  beloved  abbey 


2  84  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

of  Luxeuil,  which  Clotaire  indeed  overwhelmed  with  gifts 
and  favours.^ 

As  for  Columbanus,  he  ended  as  he  had  begun,  by  seeking 
a  solitude  still  more  complete  than  that  of  the  monastery 
which  he  had  founded  at  Bobbio.  He  had  found  upon  the 
opposite  shore  of  Trebbia,  in  the  side  of  a  great  rock,  a 
cavern,  which  he  transformed  into  a  chapel,  dedicated  to  the 
Holy  Virgin  :  there  he  passed  his  last  days  in  fasting  and 
prayer,  returning  to  the  monastery  only  for  the  Sundays  and 
holidays.  After  his  death  this  chapel  was  long  venerated 
and  much  frequented  by  afflicted  souls ;  and  three  centuries 
later,  the  annals  of  the  monastery  record,  that  those  who 
had  entered  there  sad  and  downcast  had  left  it  rejoicing, 
consoled  by  the  sweet  protection  of  Mary  and  of  Colum- 
banus.^ 

Such  was  the  life  of  the  illustrious  founder  of  Luxeuil ; 
less  forgotten,  we  are  bound  to  say,  than  others  as  worthy 
of  recollection  as  himself,  his  memory  has  been  brought  to 
light  anew  in  our  own  days,  only  to  be  made  use  of  in  a 
spirit  hostile  to  the  truth  and  authority  of  the  Holy  See.^ 

What,  then,  is  there  in  this  life  which  can  justify  the 

1  "Litteras  castigationum  affamine  plenas  Regi  dirigit  gratissimum 
munus.  .  .  .  Rex  velut  pignus  fsederis  viri  Dei  litteras  ovans  recepit." — 
Jonas,  c.  6i. 

^  "Inter  CEeteras  virtutes  .  .  .  hsec  prfccipue  viguit,  sicut  ab  anteces- 
soribus  nostris  audivimus,  quod  si  aliquis  tristis  illic  adveniebat,  si  ibi 
aliquam  morulam  haberet,  interventu  Sanctaj  Virginis  supradictique  viri 
Isetus  exinde  revertebatur." — Mirac.  S.  Columh.  a  Monack.  Bohiens.  Scec.  x., 
ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  pp.  37,  38.  Another  tradition  attributes  to  him 
the  discovery  of  a  rare  and  delicate  vegetable  in  the  heart  of  the  rocks 
vyhich  he  incessantly  travelled  over,  which  does  not  reproduce  itself  every 
year,  and  which  the  abbot  of  Bobbio  sent  to  the  kings  and  princes,  pro 
bencdlctione  S.  Columbani.  "  Nam  legumen  Bis,  quod  rustici  Herhiliam 
vocant,  ex  adventu  sui  tempore  per  singulos  annos  sponte  nascitur  per 
illas  rupes  quas  ipsi  perambulavit,  nullo  serente  et,  quod  nobis  majus  mira- 
culum  videtur,  per  scissuras  petrarum  ubi  nullus  humor  adest." — Mirac.  S. 
Columh.,  c.  5. 

■*  M.  Gorini,  in  his  Dtfense  dc  VEglise,  t.  i.,  ch.  x.,  has  demolished  the 
strange  fancies  of  MM.  Alexis  de  Saint-Priest,  Michelet,  &c.,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  political  and  religious  character  of  St.  Columbanus. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  285 

assumption  which  has  attempted  to  raise  the  founder  of 
Luxeuil  into  the  chief  of  a  political  party,  an  enemy  to 
royalty  in  his  time,  and,  more  than  that,  a  schismatic,  a 
contemner,  or  at  least  a  rival  of  the  papacy  ?  Columbanus 
had  neither  the  virtues  nor  the  vices  which  make  political 
men  ;  he  contended,  not  against  royalty,  but  against  a  single 
king,  and  he  waged  this  warfare  solely  in  defence  of  the 
purity  and  dignity  of  Christian  marriage.  It  is  impossible 
to  discover  in  his  biography,  so  full  of  minute  details,  the 
least  trace  of  a  political  tendency.  Far  from  being  an  enemy 
to  royalty,  he  was,  without  controversy,  of  all  the  great 
monks  of  his  time,  the  one  who  had  the  most  frequent  and 
cordial  intercourse  with  contemporary  kings :  with  Clotaire, 
king  of  the  Neustrians;  Theodebert,  king  of  the  Austrasians; 
Agilulf,  king  of  the  Lombards.  But  he  knew  that  virtue 
and  truth  are  made  for  kings  as  well  as  for  nations.  History 
should  admire  in  him  monastic  integrity  struggling  with 
the  retrograde  paganism  of  Merovingian  polygamy,  and  the 
foreign  missionary  and  solitary  taking  up  at  once,  in  face  of 
the  conquerors  of  Gaul,  the  freedom  of  the  prophets  of  the 
ancient  law  against  the  crowned  profligate  :  "  I  will  speak  of 
thy  testimonies  also  before  kings,  and  will  not  be  ashamed." 
This  was  the  case,  and  nothing  else ;  this  is  sufficient  for  his 
glory. 

In  respect  to  the  Holy  See,  if  some  traces  of  the  harsh 
independence  of  his  race  and  the  frank  boldness  of  his 
character  are  to  be  found  in  his  language — if  he  must  be 
blamed  for  defending  and  imposing  on  others,  with  weari- 
some obstinacy,  the  local  and  special  observances  of  his  own 
country — if  he  made  himself  ridiculous  by  offering  advice  to 
Pope  Boniface  IV.  on  a  theological  question,  which  he  him- 
self confesses  he  had  not  studied — it  must  be  added  that, 
even  in  his  most  vehement  words,  nothing  implied  the 
slightest  doubt  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Roman  See. 
He  says  expressly  that  the  pillar  of  the  Church  stands 
always  firm  at  Rome  ;  he  expressly  entitles  the  pope  the 


286  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

pastor  of  pastors,  and  the  prince  of  the  chiefs,  whose  duty  it 
is  to  protect  the  army  of  the  Lord  in  its  perils,  to  organise 
everything,  to  regulate  the  order  of  war,  to  stimulate  the 
captains,  and,  finally,  to  engage  in  the  combat,  marching 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  soldiers  of  God.^ 

This  pretended  Luther  of  the  seventh  century  has  then 
no  right  to  any  of  those  sympathies  which  have  been 
recently  bestowed  on  him.  They  have  been  addressed  to 
the  wrong  individual.  He  was  never  the  enemy  of  either 
kings  or  bishops.  He  was  a  formidable  rival  only  to  St. 
Benedict.  Neither  in  his  writings  nor  his  life  is  there  any- 
thing to  indicate  that  this  rivalry  was  intentional :  it  sprang 
naturally  from  his  independent  mind,  strongly  individual 
and  even  eccentric,  from  the  passionate  attachment  with 
which  he  inspired  so  large  a  number  of  disciples,  from  the 
missionary  impulse  which  he  evidently  possessed,  but,  above 
all,  from  the  Rule  which  he  believed  it  his  duty  to  write  for 
the  use  of  the  monastic  nation  which  he  had  collected  under 
his  crosier.^  He  never  mentions  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict, 
though  it  was  impossible  that  he  could  be  ignorant  of  its 
existence,  especially  after  he  had  gone  to  Lombardy.^  But 
he  desired  to  introduce  into  Gaul  a  durable  monument  of 
the  religious  spirit  of  his  country,  of  that  powerful  impulse 
which  had  fertilised  monastic  Ireland,  and  formed  those 
immense  collections  of  monks  where,  if  he  is  to  be  believed, 

^  Epist.  V.  ad  Bonifacium.  ' '  Pulcherrimo  omnium  totius  Europse  Eccle- 
siarum  capiti.  .  .  .  Pastorum  pastori." 

^  "His  ergo  in  locis  Monachorum  plebibus  constitutis.  .  .  .  Regulam 
quam  tenerent  Spiritu  Sancto  repletus  condidit." 

3  Mabillon  has  fully  acknowledged,  in  opposition  to  Yepes  and  Trithe- 
mius,  that  the  Rule  of  Columbanus  was  not  a  simple  modification  of  the 
Rule  of  Benedict ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  admit  the  proof  by  which  he 
assumes  to  establish  that  Columbanus,  attracted  to  Italy  by  the  fame  of 
Benedict  himself,  had  adopted  the  Rule  of  his  predecessor  and  had  intro- 
duced it  at  Bobbio.  Contrary  to  all  his  habits,  the  prince  of  erudite 
Christians  does  not  quote,  in  this  instance,  any  contemporary  text,  or  any 
fact,  and  limits  himself  to  suppositions  which  neither  agree  with  the  life 
nor  with  the  character  of  Columbanus. — Compare  Prmfat.  in  Sac.  ii..  No. 
14,  and  in  Sac.  iv.,  n.  129-135. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  287 

such  a  discipline  reigned,  that  as  many  as  a  thousand  abbots 
recognised  the  laws  of  a  single  superior,  and  such  a  union 
that,  in  certain  houses,  since  their  first  foundation,  there 
had  never  been  a  single  dispute.^ 

This  Eule,  at  once  shorter,  less  distinct,  and  more  severe 
than  that  of  St.  Benedict,  agrees  with  it,  notwithstanding,  in 
its  essential  particulars,  as  the  Benedictine  Rule  approaches, 
in  many  points,  to  the  rules  of  the  great  solitaries  of  the 
East.  It  is  not  given  to  man,  not  even  to  the  man  of  genius, 
to  isolate  himself  from  the  efforts  and  experience  of  his  pre- 
decessors, and  no  truly  practical  genius  has  attempted  or 
even  desired  it.  The  first  of  the  ten  chapters  which  form 
the  Rule  of  Oolumbanus  treats  of  obedience  ;  it  was  to  be 
absolute  and  passive ;  there  is  no  reservation,  as  in  that  of 
Benedict,  of  a  judicious  exercise  of  power  on  the  part  of  the 
abbot  or  of  the  advisers  by  whom  he  was  to  be  surrounded. 
The  second  imposes  perpetual  silence  upon  the  monks,  except 
for  useful  or  necessary  causes.  The  third  reduces  their  food 
to  the  lowest  rate  possible  :  Benedict  had  granted  meat  to 
the  weak  and  ailing  and  a  hemine  of  wine  ;  Oolumbanus 
allowed  only  pulse,  meal  moistened  with  water,  and  a  small 
loaf  to  all  alike.^  They  were  to  eat  only  in  the  evening ; 
fasting  was  to  be  a  daily  exercise,  like  work,  prayer,  or  read- 
ing. Except  Chapter  VII.,  which  establishes  a  very  com- 
plicated and  tediously  prolonged  order  of  services  for  the 
psalmody  of  the  choir  (seventy-five  psalms  and  twenty-five 

1  "  Et  cum  tanta  pluralitas  eorum  sit,  ita  ut  mille  abbates  sub  uno 
archimandrita  esse  referantur,  nulla  ibi  a  conditione  csenobii  inter  duos 
monachos  rixa  fuisse  fertur  visa."— Jiegula  S.  Columbani,  c.  7.  The 
words  apud  seniorcs  nostras,  which  are  found  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter,  should  be  interpreted,  not  as  referring  to  all  Ireland,  but  to  the 
monastery  of  Bangor,  where  Columbanus  was  a  monk  ;  but  how  is  the 
thousand  abbots  in  a  single  house  to  be  explained,  or  how  can  the  term 
abbates  be  regarded  as  synonymous  with  monks  when  the  word  monachi 
occurs  in  the  same  passage  ? 

2  "  Cibus  vilis  et  vespertinus  .  .  .  cum  parvo  panis  paximatio."  Fish, 
however,  could  not  have  been  prohibited,  since  St.  Gall  and  his  master 
were  perpetually  occupied  in  fishing. 


288  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

anthems  for  the  great  feasts,  thirty-six  psalms  and  twelve 
anthems  for  the  lesser),  the  other  chapters  treat  of  poverty, 
humility,  chastity,  discretion  or  prudence,  and  mortification, 
all  virtues  essential  to  the  monastic  condition,  but  which  the 
author  deals  with  rather  as  a  preacher  than  a  legislator.  The 
tenth,  and  last,  which  is  as  long  as  all  the  others  put  to- 
gether, forms,  under  the  title  of  Penitentiary,  a  sort  of  crimi- 
nal code,  in  which  a  new  contrast  may  be  remarked  with  the 
Benedictine  code,  in  the  extreme  severity  of  the  penalties 
prescribed  for  the  least  irregularities.  The  rigid  discipline 
used  in  the  monasteries  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  is  here 
manifest  by  the  prodigal  use  of  beating,  which  is  reserved 
in  the  Benedictine  code  for  incorrigible  criminals,  and  pre- 
scribed in  the  Penitentiary  for  the  most  insignificant  omis- 
sions. The  number  of  strokes  inflicted  on  delinquents 
varied  from  six  to  two  hundred.  This  penalty,  however, 
must  have  appeared  much  less  hard  and  less  humiliating  at 
that  period,  even  to  the  sons  of  the  great,  of  whom  so  large 
a  number  were  reckoned  among  the  disciples  of  Columbanus, 
than  it  would  seem  to  the  most  obscure  Christian  of  our  own 
time,  since  the  maximum  of  two  hundred  blows  was  regarded 
as  the  equivalent  of  two  days'  fasting  on  bread  and  water, 
and  the  choice  of  these  penalties  was  allotted  to  the  monk 
who  should  have  spoken,  without  the  presence  of  a  third 
person,  to  a  woman.  He  who,  on  a  journey,  should  have 
slept  under  the  same  roof  with  a  woman,  had  to  fast  three 
days  on  bread  and  water.-^ 

These  excessive  severities  discouraged  no  one.  Colum- 
banus saw  an  army  of  disciples  collect  around  him,  in  the 
sanctuaries  which  he  had  founded,  up  to  the  last  day  of  his 
life.      They  were  more  numerous  and  more  illustrious  than 

1  "  Si  quis  monachus  dormierit  in  una  domo  cum  muliere,  tres  dies  in 
pane  et  aqua  ;  si  nescivit  quod  non  debet,  uno  die." — M.  Gorini,  op.  cit., 
torn.  i.  p.  420,  and  others,  have  sufficiently  exposed  the  absurd  error  com- 
mitted by  M.  Michelet,  in  his  Bistoire  de  France  (torn.  i.  p.  286),  where  he 
translates  these  words  as  follows  :  "  For  the  monk  who  has  transgressed 
with  a  woman,  two  days  of  bread  and  water." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  289 

those  of  Benedict.  Inspired  by  the  spirit  of  this  great  saint, 
pervaded  by  the  vigorous  life  which  flowed  from  him,  like 
him  self-willed,  dauntless,  and  unwearied,  they  gave  to  the 
monastic  spirit  the  most  powerful,  rapid,  and  active  impulse 
which  it  had  yet  received  in  the  West.  They  extended  it 
especially  over  those  regions  where  that  Franco- Germanic 
race,  which  hid  in  its  skirts  the  future  life  of  Christian 
civilisation,  was  laboriously  forming  itself.  By  their  means 
the  genius  and  memory  of  Columbanus  hover  over  the  whole 
,  of  the  seventh  century,  of  all  the  centuries  the  most  fertile 
and  illustrious  in  the  number  and  fervour  of  the  monastic 
establishments  which  it  produced.  However,  we  shall  see, 
before  the  century  was  completed,  the  rule  and  institution 
of  the  great  Irishman  everywhere  replaced  by  the  spirit  and 
laws  of  his  immortal  predecessor.  Columbanus  had  more  of 
that  fascination  which  attracts  for  a  day,  or  for  a  generation, 
than  of  that  depth  of  genius  which  creates  for  ages. 

Let  us  endeavour,  then,  if  we  can,  to  trace  a  brief  picture 
of  this  monastic  mission  of  the  sons  of  Columbanus,  at  once 
so  laborious  and  so  productive,  the  fruits  of  which,  if  they 
must  not  be  exclusively  attributed  to  the  glory  or  authority 
of  the  Celtic  missionary,  did  not  the  less  enrich  for  a  thou- 
sand years  and  more  the  treasures  of  the  Church. 

One  word,  in  the  first  place,  upon  the  Lombard  abbey 
where  Columbanus  completed  his  career.  His  successor  was 
Attains,  a  noble  Burgundian.  He  had  first  been  a  monk  at 
iLerins,  but,  cast  back  by  the  decay  of  that  renowned  sanc- 
tuary, had  been  drawn  to  Luxeuil  by  the  fame  of  Colum- 
banus, and  was  named  by  the  latter  as  his  successor  after 
his  expulsion  from  Burgundy.-^  But  he  preferred  to  join 
him  in  exile.  After  the  death  of  the  founder,  the  new 
abbot  was  troubled  by  an  insurrection  of  the  Italian  monks, 
who  declared  themselves  incapable  of  bearing  so  many 
austerities  and  so  hard  a  discipline.      He  permitted  them  to 

^  Epist.  ad  Pratres,  ubi  supra. 
VOL.  II.  T 


290  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

go ;  they  went  to  seek  another  resting-place,  some  among 
the  neighbouring  mountains,  some  on  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean ;  several  returned  afterwards  to  the  fold 
where  Attalus  continued  the  work  of  his  master,  struggling 
bravely  against  Arianism,  which  had  found  its  last  citadel 
among  the  conquering  Lombards  of  northern  Italy.  He 
died  at  the  foot  of  a  crucifix  which  he  had  placed  at  the 
door  of  his  cell  that  he  might  kiss  the  feet  every  time  he 
went  out  or  in,  and  was  buried  by  the  side  of  Columbanus. 

Another  stranger  governed  the  monastery  after  him,  Ber- 
tulph,  a  noble  Austrasian,  and  near  relative  of  the  famous 
Arnoul,  Bishop  of  Metz,  the  earliest  known  ancestor  of  that 
Carlovingian  race  which  was  soon  to  unite  Gaul  and  Italy 
under  its  laws.  Bertulph  was  born  a  pagan ;  the  example 
of  his  cousin  had  converted  him  and  led  him  to  Luxeuil, 
from  whence  he  followed  Attalus  to  Bob  bio.  He  was 
scarcely  elected  when  he  had  to  struggle  with  the  Bishop 
of  Tortona,  who  wished  to  bring  the  abbey  under  his  juris- 
diction, and  attempted  to  arm  himself  with  the  authority  of 
Ariowald,  king  of  the  Lombards. 

This  Ariowald,  son-in-law  and  successor  of  Agilulf,  did 
not  promise  to  be  a  very  zealous  protector  of  the  Irish  abbey. 
Before  he  became  king  he  had  met  one  day  in  the  streets  of 
Pavia  one  of  the  monks  of  Bobbio,  charged  by  the  abbot 
Attalus  with  a  mission  for  the  capital  of  the  Lombards. 
Seeing  him  from  a  distance,  he  said,  "  There  is  one  of 
Columbanus's  monks,  who  refuse  to  salute  us."  After  which 
he  himself  saluted  the  monk  derisively.  The  latter,  whose 
name  was  Blidulf,  answered  that  he  would  have  saluted  him 
willingly  had  he  been  irreproachable  in  matters  of  faith,  and 
took  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  preach  him  a  sermon  upon 
the  equality  of  the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity.  Ariowald, 
furious  at  this,  posted  two  of  his  satellites  to  await  the  monk's 
return,  and  beat  him  to  death.  Blidulf,  who  had  supped 
with  an  orthodox  citizen  of  Pavia,  was  attacked  in  a  remote 
place  by  these  assassins,  who  beat  him  unmercifully,  and 


ST.    COLUMBANUS 


291 


left  him  on  the  ground  for  dead.  At  the  end  of  some  hours 
he  was  found  by  his  host  lying  in  his  blood,  but  he  raised 
himself  up,  despite  his  cruel  wounds,  saying  that  he  had 
never  slept  a  sweeter  sleep. ^  This  wonder  roused  popular 
opinion  in  favour  of  the  monks  of  Bobbio,  and  their  ortho- 
dox doctrine.  Ariowald,  confused  and  penitent,  sent  to  the 
abbey  to  ask  pardon,  and  offered  gifts,  which  were  refused. 
But  we  must  believe  that  this  adventure  had  a  salutary  im- 
pression on  his  soul  ;  for  after  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
though  still  an  Arian,  he  not  only  abstained  from  persecuting 
the  orthodox  monastery,  but  even  from  condemning  it  in  its 
struggles  with  the  bishop.  "It  is  not  my  part,"  he  said, 
"  to  know  these  priestly  contentions :  let  them  be  judged  by 
their  synods."  ^ 

Bertulph,  however,  went  to  Rome  to  appeal  to  Pope 
Honorius,  made  him  acquainted  with  the  rule  and  the 
customs  followed  in  the  new  foundation,  obtained  his  sove- 
reign approbation,  and  returned  furnished  with  a  privilege 
which  exempted  from  episcopal  jurisdiction  the  monastery  in 
which  Columbanus  had  completed  his  course.^ 

Whilst  the  Franks  of  Burgundy  and  Austrasia,  called  to 
follow  the  great  Irish  monk  into  Lombardy,  formed  in  a 
gorge  of  the  Apennines  a  centre  of  energetic  reaction  against 
Arian  heresy,  against  the  effeminacy  of  the  Italian  monks, 
and  the  efforts  of  that  paganism  which  still  existed  among 

^  "  Ex  Columbani  monachis  iste  est,  qui  nobis  salutantibus  denegant 
apta  respondere.  Cumque  jam  baud  procul  abesset,  deridens  salutem  prje- 
misit.  .  .  .  Percussus  cerebro  et  omni  compage  corporis  coUisus,  magnis 
f  ustium  ictibus  ac  sudibus  pulsatus.  .  .  .  Nihil  ei  respondit  unquam  suavius 
accessisse  nee  somnum  dulciorem  habuisse  testatur." — Jonas,  Vita  S. 
Bertulfi,  c.  14,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii. 

^  "  Non  meum  est  sacerdotum  causas  discernere  quas  synodalis  exami- 
natio  ad  piirum  decet  adducere." — Jonas,  Vita  S.  Bertulfi,  c.  5. 

^  Jonas  of  Susa,  a  monk  at  Bobbio,  as  we  have  already  said,  has  written 
besides  the  biography  of  St.  Columbanus,  those  of  his  two  successors,  and 
has  dedicated  them  to  Bobbolene,  fourth  abbot  of  Bobbio,  and  of  Frank- 
ish  origin,  like  his  predecessors.  The  names  of  the  monks  whom  Jonas 
cites  in  his  narrative  seem  to  indicate  the  same  Frankish  origin  :  Merovee, 
Blidulph,  Theodald,  Baudachaire. 


292  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  peasants,^  the  Irish  monks,  who  had  been  expelled  from 
Luxeuil  with  their  illustrious  compatriot,  but  who  had  fol- 
lowed him  only  to  the  foot  of  the  Alps,  sowed  the  seed  amid 
the  semi-pagan  populations  of  Eastern  Helvetia  and  of 
Ehsetia.  One  of  them,  Sigisbert,  separated  from  his  master  at 
the  foot  of  the  hill  which  has  since  been  called  St.  Gothard, 
and  crossing  the  glaciers  and  peaks  of  Orispalt,  directing 
his  steps  to  the  east,  arrived  at  the  source  of  the  Rhine,  and 
from  thence  descended  into  a  vast  solitude,  where  he  built 
a  cell  of  branches  near  a  fountain.  The  few  inhabitants  of 
these  wild  regions,  who  were  still  idolaters,  surrounded  him, 
admired  him,  and  listened  to  him  ;  but  when  he  attempted 
to  cut  down  the  sacred  oak,  the  object  of  their  traditional 
worship,  one  of  the  pagans  aimed  an  axe  at  his  head.  The 
sign  of  the  cross  disarmed  this  assailant  ;  the  work  of  con- 
version proceeded  painfully,  but  with  the  support  of  a 
neighbouring  noble,  who  became  a  Christian  and  then  a 
monk  under  the  teachings  of  the  Irish  missionary,  and  who 
endowed  with  all  his  possessions  the  new-born  monastery, 
which  still  exists  under  the  name  of  Dissentis.^  Thus  was 
won  and  sanctified,  from  its  very  source,  that  Rhine  whose 
waters  were  to  bathe  so  many  illustrious  monastic  sanctuaries. 
Not  far  from  the  spot  where  the  Rhine  falls  into  Lake 
Constance,  and  a  little  to  the  south  of  the  lake.  Gall,  cured 
of  his  fever,  but  deeply  saddened  by  the  departure  of  his 
master,  chose  a  retreat  which  his  name  was  to  make  im- 
mortal. A  deacon,  much  given  to  hunting  and  fishing, 
pointed  out  to  him  a  wild  solitude  enclosed  within  wooded 
heights,  with  abundant  streams,  but  inhabited  by  bears, 
boars,  and  wolves.      "  If  the  Lord  is  with  us,  who  can  be 

1  See  the  adventure  of  Merovee  the  monk,  who,  going  from  Bobbio  to 
Tortona,  attempted  to  destroy  a  rustic  temple  (fanum  quoddam  ex  arhoribus 
consitum)  which  he  found  on  the  shores  of  the  Serivia,  and  was  beaten  and 
thrown  into  the  water  by  the/ani  cuUores. — JoNAS,  lib.  c.  i6. 

2  BucELINUS,  Martyrol.  Bened.  II.  Jul. :  Mabillon,  Ann.  Bened.,  lib.  xi. 
c.  20.  The  abbey  of  Dissentis,  burned  by  the  French  in  1799,  has  since 
been  rebuilt. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  293 

against  us  ?  "  said  Gall ;  and  he  set  out  with  some  provisions 
in  his  wallet,  and  a  small  net  for  fishing.  Towards  evening 
they  arrived  at  the  spot  where  the  torrent  of  Steinach  hollows 
a  bed  for  itself  in  the  rocks.  As  he  walked  on  praying,  his 
foot  caught  in  the  brushwood  and  he  fell.  The  deacon  ran 
to  raise  him  up.  "  No,"  said  Gall :  "  here  is  my  chosen 
habitation ;  here  is  my  resting-place  for  ever."  There  he 
arranged  two  hazel-boughs  into  the  form  of  a  cross,  attached 
to  it  the  relics  which  he  carried  round  his  neck,  and  passed 
the  night  in  prayer.  Before  his  devotions  were  concluded, 
a  bear  descended  from  the  mountain  to  collect  the  remains 
of  the  traveller's  meal.  Gall  threw  him  a  loaf,  and  said  to 
him,  "  In  the  name  of  Christ,  withdraw  from  this  valley  ;  the 
neighbouring  mountains  shall  be  common  to  us  and  thee, 
but  on  condition  that  thou  shalt  do  no  more  harm  either  to 
man  or  beast."  The  next  day  the  deacon  went  to  fish  in  the 
torrent,  and,  as  he  threw  his  net,  two  demons  appeared  to 
him  under  the  form  of  two  naked  women  about  to  bathe, 
who  threw  stones  at  him,  and  accused  him  of  having  led 
into  the  desert  the  cruel  man  who  had  always  overcome 
them.  Gall,  when  he  came,  exorcised  these  phantoms ;  they 
fled,  ascending  the  course  of  the  torrent,  and  could  be  heard 
on  the  mountain,  weeping  and  crying  as  with  the  voices  of 
women  :  "  Where  shall  we  go  ?  this  stranger  hunts  us  from 
the  midst  of  men,  and  even  from  the  depths  of  the  desert ; " 
while  other  voices  asked,  "  whether  the  Christian  was  still 
there,  and  if  he  would  not  soon  depart."  -^ 

These  poetic  traditions,  transmitted  from  lip  to  lip  among 
the  first  Christians  of  Helvetia,  gave  a  natural  picture  of 
the  effect  produced  upon  the  souls  of  the  inhabitants  by 
the  double  struggle  of  the  Irish  missionaries  against  the 

1  OzANAM,  Etudes  Germaniques,  ii.  123  ;  Rettberg,  Eirchengeschichte,  ii. 
40-43  :  Vita  S.  Gain,  ap.  Pertz,  Monumenta,  ii.  5.  "  Pracipio  tibi,  bestia, 
in  nomine  Domini.  Tu  induxisti  virum  istum  in  hunc  eremum,  virum  ini- 
quum  et  invidia  plenum.  .  .  .  Prsecipio  vobis,  phantasmata.  .  .  .  Heu  I 
quid  faciemus,  aut  quo  pergemus  ?  "— Walafrid.  Strabo,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0. 
S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  224. 


294  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

gods  of  paganism  and  the  forces  of  nature.  The  entire  life 
of  the  celebrated  apostle  of  German  Switzerland  is  thus 
taken  possession  of  by  legends,  which  have  interwoven  with 
it  many  tales,  the  charm  of  which  detains  us  in  spite  of 
ourselves.  One  of  these  shows  him  to  us  appealed  to  by 
the  same  duke  of  Alamannia  who  wished  to  expel  Colum- 
banus  and  his  companions  out  of  his  province,  but  who  now 
claimed  the  help  of  the  holy  solitary  whose  fame  already 
extended  afar,  to  heal  his  daughter,  possessed  by  a  devil, 
who  resisted  all  exorcisms,  crying  out  that  he  would  yield 
only  to  Gall,  who  had  already  banished  him  and  his  fellows 
from  the  banks  of  the  Lakes  of  Zurich  and  Constance. 
Gall  refused  to  go,  and  disappeared  into  the  mountains  of 
Rhsetia;  he  was  found  there  in  a  cavern,  and  led  to  the 
ducal  castle  at  Uberlingen.  He  found  the  young  princess 
lying,  as  if  dead,  upon  the  knees  of  her  mother,  her  eyes 
shut,  and  her  mouth  open.  He  knelt  down  by  her  side, 
and,  after  a  fervent  prayer,  commanded  the  demon  to  come 
out  of  her.  The  young  girl  opened  her  eyes,  and  the  demon, 
speaking  by  her  voice,  said,  before  it  obeyed  him,  "  Art  thou, 
then,  that  Gall  who  hast  already  chased  me  away  every- 
where ?  Ingrate !  it  is  to  avenge  thee  that  I  have  entered 
into  the  daughter  of  thy  persecutor,  and  thou  comest  now 
to  expel  me  again !  "  When  the  cure  was  complete,  Gall 
advised  the  daughter  of  the  duke  to  consecrate  her  virginity 
to  God,  who  had  delivered  her.  But  this  princess,  whose 
name  was  Friedeburga  (castle  of  peace),  and  who  was,  like 
all  princesses  canonised  by  legends,  of  singular  beauty,  had 
been  affianced  to  Sigebert,  the  eldest  son  of  Thierry  II.,  who 
had  just  succeeded  his  father,  and  was  soon  to  perish  under 
the  sword  of  Clotaire  II.  She  was  sent  to  him  at  Metz. 
When  he  learned  how  and  by  whom  she  had  been  cured, 
the  young  prince  made  a  gift  and  concession  to  the  Irish 
saint  of  all  the  territory  which  he  should  desire  in  the  public 
or  royal  possessions  between  the  Rhsetian  Alps  and  the 
Lake  of  Constance.     Then  he  wished  to  proceed  with  his 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  295 

marriage.  Friedeburga  asked  some  days'  respite  to  recover 
her  strength  ;  she  took  advantage  of  this  to  flee  to  a  church 
dedicated  to  St.  Stephen.  There  she  covered  herself  with 
a  nun's  veil,  and,  taking  hold  of  the  corner  of  the  altar, 
prayed  to  the  saint  who  had  first  shed  his  blood  for  Christ 
to  help  her.  The  young  king,  when  he  was  told  of  this, 
came  to  the  church  with  the  nuptial  robe  and  crown  which 
had  been  intended  for  his  bride.  On  seeing  him,  she  held 
closer  and  closer  to  the  altar.  But  he  reassured  her,  and 
said,  "  I  come  here  only  to  do  thy  will."  He  commanded 
the  priests  to  bring  her  from  the  altar  to  him  ;  when  she 
approached,  he  had  her  clothed  in  the  nuptial  robe,  and 
placed  the  crown  over  her  veil.  Then,  after  looking  at  her 
for  some  time,  he  said  to  her,  "  Such  as  thou  art  there, 
adorned  for  my  bridal,  I  yield  thee  to  the  bridegroom  whom 
thou  preferrest  to  me — to  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Then 
taking  her  hand,  he  placed  her  at  the  altar,  and  left  the 
church,  to  mourn  in  secret  over  his  lost  love.^ 

However,  the  zealous  solitary  whose  influence  inspired 
from  afar  these  touching  and  generous  sacrifices,  refused 
the  bishopric  of  Constance,  which  the  duke  of  Alamannia 

1  "Singulari  pulchritudine  fulgens.  ...  In  sinu  matris,  oculis  clausis, 
ore  inhianti.  .  .  .  Tu  ne  Gallus,  .  .  .  Ego  plane  ob  ultionem  injuria^  quam 
Dux  iste  tibi  et  sociis  tuis  irrogavit  filiam  ipsius  invasi,  et  sic  ejicis  me. 
.  .  .  Sicut  mihi  fuisti  prasparata  cum  ornamentis,  sic  te  dabo  ad  sponsam 
Domino  meo  J.  C.  .  .  .  Deinde  ecclesi^  limen  excedens  lacrymis  abscon- 
ditum  patefecit  amorem."— Walafr.  Steabo,  c.  15-21.  "Ob  quod  fertur 
egressus  flere."— Anon.  VII.  Scec.  All  these  facts  are  also  related  in  the 
anonymous  life  published  by  Pertz  in  the  seventh  century,  and  reproduced 
by  the  new  BoUandists  (t.  vii.  Octobris,  p.  887),  who  maintain  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  essential  part  of  this  narration  against  the  criticisms  of  most 
modern  historians.  Compare  Mabillon,  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  42, 
and  Rettberg,  Kirchengeschichtc  DeutscUands,  t.  ii.  p.  42.  The  most 
serious  objection  arises  from  the  age  of  Sigebert,  the  eldest  of  the  children, 
whom  Columbanus  had  refused  to  bless,  and  who  could  scarcely  be  more 
than  thirteen  years  old  in  613,  the  year  of  the  death  of  his  father,  Thierry, 
himself  only  twenty-six  years  of  age.  In  an  interesting  letter,  published 
by  M.  Dantier,  in  his  Rapport  sur  la  Corresponclance  Inedite  des  Benedictins 
(1857,  p.  198),  Mabillon,  while  admitting  the  existence  and  high  birth  of 
Sigebert,  disputes  his  being  the  son  of  Thierry  and  king  of  the  Franks. 


296  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

would  have  conferred  upon  him,  alleging  as  his  reason  the 
kind  of  interdict  which  his  master  had  pronounced  at  the 
moment  of  separation,  and  returned  into  his  dear  solitude, 
which  ten  or  twelve  native  Christians  soon  shared  with 
him/  He  selected  one  of  these  to  send  across  the  Alps 
to  make  inquiries  concerning  the  fate  of  Columbanus,  who 
brought  back  from  Bobbio  the  news  of  his  death,  and  the 
crosier  of  the  illustrious  exile,  which  he  had  bequeathed  to 
his  compatriot  and  friend  as  a  sign  of  absolution.  Ten 
years  later,  Gall  received  a  deputation  of  six  monks,  Irish 
like  himself,  from  Luxeuil,  who  came  in  the  name  of  the 
community  to  pray  his  acceptance  of  the  government  of  the 
great  abbey,  vacant  by  the  death  of  Eustace.  But  he  again 
refused  to  leave  that  asylum  which  he  had  formed  for 
himself,  and  where  he  continued  to  preach  and  edify  the 
surrounding  population,  receiving  disciples  and  visitors  in 
always  increasing  numbers,  whom  he  supported  by  the  pro- 
duce of  his  fishing.  When  he  died,^  the  entire  country  of 
the  Alamans  had  become  a  Christian  province,  and  around 
his  cell  were  already  collected  the  rudiments  of  the  great 
monastery  which,  under  the  same  name  of  St.  Gall,  was  to 
become  one  of  the  most  celebrated  schools  of  Christendom, 
and  one  of  the  principal  centres  of  intellectual  life  in  the 
Germanic  world. 

Several  generations  passed  before  St.  Gall  could  accom- 
plish its  glorious  destinies,  whilst  the  principal  foundation 
of  Columbanus  immediately  attained  the  climax  of  its  great- 
ness and  popularity.  No  monastery  of  the  West  had  yet 
shone  with  so  much  lustre,  or  attracted  so  many  disciples, 
as  Luxeuil,  since  the  exile  of  its  illustrious  founder  fixed 
upon  it  the  attention  and  sympathy  of  Christian  Gaul.  It 
may  be  remembered  that,  at  the  time  of  Columbanus's  exile, 

1  "Reversurus  ad  dilectje  solitudinis  aulam. "— Wal.  Steabo,  c.  19. 

2  He  died  i6th  October  646.  This  is  the  date  given  by  Mabillon,  and 
confirmed  by  Rettberg,  ii.  46-48.  The  new  Bollandists,  p.  881,  prefer  that 
of  627. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  297 

none  of  his  monks  who  were  not  Irish  were  allowed  to  follow 
him.  One  of  these,  named  Eustace,  born  of  a  noble  family 
in  Burgundy,  and  who  had  been  a  soldier  before  entering 
Luxeuil,  had  to  be  torn  from  the  arms  of  his  spiritual  father. 
After  a  time,  he  followed  him  to  Bregentz,  from  whence  he 
returned  to  Luxeuil  to  govern  the  community  deprived  of 
its  natural  head,  and  to  dispute  possession  with  the  secular 
persons  who  invaded  it  on  all  sides,  and  who  had  even 
established  their  shepherds  in  the  enclosure  inhabited  by 
the  monks.  Eustace  was  entrusted  by  Clotaire  II.,  when 
he  became  sole  master  of  the  three  Frank  kingdoms,  with 
the  mission  of  recalling  Columbanus,  as  we  have  already 
seen.  Upon  the  refusal  of  the  latter,  Eustace  remained  at 
the  head  of  the  great  abbey,  which  attracted  an  increasing 
number  of  monks,  and  the  veneration  of  the  nations.  How- 
ever, the  missionary  spirit  and  desire  to  preach  exercised 
an  overwhelming  influence  over  Eustace,  as  over  all  the 
disciples  of  the  great  Irish  missionary.  The  bishops,  as- 
sembled in  the  Council  of  Bonneuil-sur-Marne  by  Clotaire 
XL,  nominated  him  to  preach  the  faith  to  unconverted 
nations.  He  began  with  the  Varasques,  who  inhabited, 
not  far  from  Luxeuil,  the  banks  of  the  Doubs,  near  Baume, 
some  of  whom  were  still  idolaters,  and  worshipped  the  genii 
of  the  woods,  the  fauns  and  dryads  of  classic  antiquity, 
whilst  the  others  had  fallen  victims  to  heresy.  He  after- 
wards travelled  beyond  the  countries  which  Columbanus 
had  visited,  to  the  extremity  of  northern  Gaul,  among  the 
Boiens  or  Bavarians.^     His  mission  was  not  without  success  ; 

1  "Warascos  ,  .  .  qui  agrestium  fanis  decepti,  quos  vulgi  Faunos 
vocant."— Fito  S.  Agili,  c.  9,  ap.  ACT.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  306.  Compare 
Jonas,  Vita  S.  Eustasii;  Vita  S.  Salabergce ;  Rettberg,  t.  ii.  188;  and 
NiEDERMAYER,  Das  Moncthilm  in  Bajuwarien,  1859,  p.  41.  This  last 
author  thinks  himself  entitled  to  affirm,  on  the  authority  of  P.  Meichel- 
beck,  that  St.  Eustace  adopted  from  that  time  the  Benedictine  rule.  But 
Meichelbeck,  in  the  only  part  of  his  works  in  which  he  treats  this  question 
(Chronic.  Benedicto-Buranum,  Proleg.,  p.  75,  Monachii,  1751),  gives  no  proof, 
nor  any  reason  but  the  insufficient  arguments  of  Mabillon.  See  above, 
page  286,  note  3. 


298  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

but  Luxeuil,  which  could  not  remain  thus  without  a  head, 
soon  recalled  him. 

During  the  ten  years  of  his  rule,  a  worthy  successor  of 
Columbanus,  he  succeeded  in  securing  the  energetic  support 
of  the  Frank  nobility,  as  well  as  the  favour  of  Clotaire  II. 
Under  his  active  and  intelligent  administration,  the  abbey 
founded  by  St.  Columbanus  attained  its  highest  point  of 
splendour,  and  was  recognised  as  the  monastic  capital  of  all 
the  countries  under  Frank  government.  The  other  monas- 
teries, into  which  laxness  and  the  secular  spirit  had  but  too 
rapidly  found  their  way,  yielded  one  after  another  to  the 
happy  influence  of  Luxeuil,  and  gradually  renewed  them- 
selves by  its  example.'^  Abbots  animated  by  sincere  zeal 
did  not  hesitate  to  draw  from  that  new  fountain  the 
strength  and  light  with  which  they  found  themselves  un- 
provided in  their  ancient  sanctuaries.  Among  them  was 
Conon,  the  abbot  of  the  famous  monastery  of  Lerins,  which 
had  been,  two  centuries  before,  the  most  illustrious  com- 
munity of  the  West,  but  which  had  since  come  through  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  a  slow  decay. 

The  great  abbey  of  Sequania  became  thus  a  nursery  of 
bishops  and  abbots — preachers  and  reformers  for  the  whole 
Church  of  these  vast  countries,  and  principally  for  the  two 
kingdoms  of  Austrasia  and  Burgundy.  It  owed  this  pre- 
ponderating influence  not  only  to  the  monastic  regularity 
which  was  severely  observed  there,  but  especially  to  the 
flourishing   school    established   by    Columbanus,    which    he 

1  "Properabat  ad  monasteria,  maximeque  Lussedium,  quod  erat  eo 
tempore  cunctis  eminentius  atque  districtius.  Neqiie  enim  tarn  crebra 
adhuc  erant  in  Galliis  monasteria  :  et  sicubi  assent,  non  sub  regulari 
quidem  disciplina,  sed  prorsus  erant  in  malitia  fermenti  veteris  ssecularia. 
Prffiter  Lussedium  ergo,  quod  solum,  ut  dictum  est,  districtionem  regulse 
solerter  tenebat,  Solemniacense  monasterium  in  partibus  occiduis  hujus 
religionis  extitet  caput.  Ex  quo  demum  multi  sumpserunt  et  initium  et 
exemplum,  adeo  ut  nunc  quoque  propitia  divinitate,  innumera  per  omnem 
Franciam  et  Galliam  habeantur  sub  regulari  disciplina,  alma  utriusque 
sexus  ccsnobia."— AUDOENUS,  Vita  S.  Eligii,  lib.  1.  c.  21.  (He  wrote  from 
660  to  680.) 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  299 

had  entrusted,  while  he  remained  there,  to  the  special 
charge  of  Eustace,  and  whose  progress  the  latter,  when 
he  himself  became  abbot,  promoted  with  unwearied  zeal. 
Luxeuil  was  the  most  celebrated  school  of  Christendom 
during  the  seventh  century,  and  the  most  frequented.  The 
monks  and  clerks  of  other  monasteries,  and,  more  numerous 
still,  the  children  of  the  noblest  Frank  and  Burgundian 
races,  crowded  to  it.  Lyons,  Autun,  Langres,  and  Stras- 
bourg, the  most  famous  cities  of  Gaul,  sent  their  youth 
thither.  The  fathers  came  to  study  with  their  children; 
some  aspiring  to  the  honour  of  counting  themselves  one 
day  among  the  sons  of  St.  Columbanus ;  others  to  re-enter 
into  secular  life  with  the  credit  of  having  drawn  their 
knowledge  of  divine  and  human  learning  from  so  famous  a 
seat  of  learning.  As  it  always  happens,  when  a  great  centre 
of  Christian  virtues  is  formed  in  the  world,  light  and  life 
shine  forth  from  it,  and  brighten  all  around  with  irresistible 
energy.^ 

From  the  banks  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva  to  the  coast  of  the 
North  Sea,  every  year  saw  the  rise  of  some  monastery  peopled 
and  founded  by  the  children  of  Luxeuil,  whilst  the  episcopal 
cities  sought  as  bishops  men  trained  to  the  government  of 
souls  by  the  regenerating  influence  of  this  great  monastery. 
Besanpon,  Noyon,  Laon,  Verdun,  and  the  diocesan  capitals  of 
the  country  of  the  Eauraques  and  Morins,  were  so  fortunate 

1  "Cum  omnium  Francorum  honore  fulciretur."— Fz'te  <S.  Eustasii,  c.  6. 
"Luxovium  omnium  caput  Burgundise  monasteriorum  et  Franciae." — Gallia 
Christian.  Vet,  ap.  D.  PiTEA,  298.  "  Pene  singulare  tarn  in  religionis  apice 
quam  in  perfections  doctrinte."— Ftto  S.  Frodoberti,  c.  5,  ACT.  SS.  0.  S.  B., 
t.  ii.  601. 

'•Viri  religiosi  illuc  undecumque  confluunt,  se  suosque  liberos  plurimi 
certatim  imbuendos  offerunt,  illud  ante  omnia  ducentes  per  maximum, 
si  post  longgevam  probantis  injurise  tolerantiam  quodammodo  admitti 
mereantur  in  congregationem.  Jam  vero  quis  locus  vel  civitas  non 
gaudeat  ex  beati  viri  Columbani  disciplina  rectorem  habere,  pontificem 
vel  abbatem,  cum  constet  ex  hujus  virtute  magisterii  pene  totum  Fran- 
corum orbem  decretis  regularibus  fuisse  primum  decenter  ornatum  ?  "— 
Adson,   Vita  S.  Bercharii,  c.  6,  ap.  ACT.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  800. 


300  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

as  to  obtain  such  bishops  almost  at  the  same  time.  Their 
good  fortune  was  envied  by  all,  and  all  vied  in  seeking 
superiors  whom  they  concluded  beforehand  to  be  saints,'^ 
And  it  was  with  reason  ;  for  perhaps  so  great  a  number  of 
men,  honoured  by  the  Church  after  their  death  with  public 
worship,  has  never  been  collected  on  one  point,  or  into  so 
short  a  space  as  twenty  years.^ 

This  remarkable  prosperity  was  threatened  with  a  sudden 
interruption  by  means  of  the  intrigues  of  a  false  brother  who 
had  stolen  into  the  monastic  family  of  Columbanus.  A  man 
named  Agrestin,  who  had  been  notary  or  secretary  to  King 
Thierry,  the  persecutor  of  Columbanus,  came  one  day  to  give 
himself  and  all  his  property  to  Luxeuil.  Being  admitted 
among  the  monks,  he  soon  showed  a  desire  to  go,  like  Eus- 
tace, to  preach  the  faith  to  the  pagans.  In  vain  the  abbot, 
who  could  see  no  evangelical  quality  in  him,  attempted  to 
restrain  that  false  zeal.  He  was  obliged  to  let  him  go. 
Agrestin  followed  the  footsteps  of  Eustace  into  Bavaria,  but 
made  nothing  of  it,  and  passed  from  thence  into  Istria  and 
Lombardy,   where    he   embraced  the    schism    of    the  Three 

^  We  may  mention,  among  the  bishops  whose  names  will  not  recur  again, 
Hermenfried  of  Verdun,  son  of  one  of  the  principal  lords  of  Alsatia,  at 
one  time  a  soldier  and  lieutenant  of  King  Thierry  of  Burgundy.  He  was 
touched  by  grace  in  the  middle  of  a  battle,  and  became  a  monk  under 
Columbanus  about  605.  He  was  taken  from  Luxeuil  to  be  made  Bishop  of 
Verdun  about  609.  Persecuted,  like  his  spiritual  master,  by  Brunehault, 
and  sharing  afterwards  in  all  the  misfortunes  of  his  diocese,  he  died  of 
grief,  in  621,  at  sight  of  the  calamities  of  his  people. 

^  Vie  des  Saints  de  Franche-Comtd,  by  the  professors  of  the  College  of  St. 
Frangois  Xavier,  tome  ii.  p.  492.  The  second  volume  of  this  excellent  col- 
lection is  exclusively  devoted  to  the  saints  of  Luxeuil,  and  it  is  the  best 
work  that  can  be  read  on  this  subject.  We  borrow  from  it  the  following 
enumeration  of  the  saints  sprung  from  the  abbey  of  Luxeuil  alone  : — 


Columbanus. 

Valery. 

Donatus. 

Columbanus  the  younger. 

Waldolenus. 

Attains. 

Desle. 

Sigisbert. 

Li^obard. 

Lua. 

Eustace. 

Bobolenus. 

Gall. 

Cagnoald. 

Ursicin. 

Ragnacarius. 

Hermenfried. 

Waldalenus. 

Acharius. 

Agilus. 

Colombin. 

ST.    COLUMBANUS  30I 

Chapters,  which  had  already  put  Columbanus  in  danger  of 
compromising  himself  with  the  Holy  See.  But  the  autho- 
rity of  the  sovereign  pontiff  had  not  been  slow  in  exercising 
its  legitimate  influence  upon  the  Italian  disciples  of  the  great 
Irish  monk :  and  when  Agrestin  attempted  to  involve  the 
second  abbot  of  Bobbio,  Attalus,  in  the  schism,  he  was  so 
badly  received  that  he  imagined  himself  entitled  to  address 
the  successor  of  Columbanus  in  an  epistle  full  of  invectives 
and  calumnies.  He  returned  from  thence  to  Luxeuil,  where 
he  tried  to  corrupt  his  former  brethren.  Eustace  then  re- 
membered what  the  exiled  Columbanus  had  written  to  them, 
in  his  letter  from  Nantes,  just  before  his  embarkation  :  "  If 
there  is  one  among  you  who  holds  different  sentiments  from 
the  others,  send  him  away ;  "  ^  and  he  commanded  Agrestin 
to  leave  the  community.  To  avenge  himself,  the  schismatic 
began  to  snarl,  says  the  contemporary  annalist,  hawking  here 
and  there  injurious  imputations  against  that  same  rule  of  St. 
Columbanus  which  he  himself  had  professed,  and  the  success 
of  which  could  not  fail  to  have  excited  some  jealousy  and 
hostility.  One  of  the  bishops,  Abellinus  of  Geneva,  listened 
to  his  denunciations,  and  exerted  himself  to  make  the  neigh- 
bouring prelates  share  his  dislike.  King  Clotaire,  who  heard 
of  it,  and  who  was  always  full  of  solicitude  for  Luxeuil,  as- 
sembled most  of  the  bishops  of  the  kingdom  of  Burgundy  in 
council  at  Macon.  To  this  council  Eustace  was  called,  and 
the  accuser  invited  to  state  his  complaints  against  the  rule 
of  Luxeuil.  He  says  nothing  of  the  celebration  of  Easter 
according  to  the  Irish  custom,  which  proves  that  Columbanus 
or  his  disciples  had  finally  given  up  that  assumption ;  nor 
were  the  severe  penalties  of  the  Penitentiary  touched  upon. 
All  his  complaints  were  directed  against  certain  insignificant 
peculiarities,  which  he  called  superfluous,  contrary  to  the 
canons,  or  showing  a  personal  spirit.  "  I  have  discovered," 
said  he,  "  that  Columbanus  has  established  usages  which  are 

^  "  Tantum  inter  vos  non  sit  qui  unum  non  sit  .  .  .  quicumque  sint 
rebelles  foras  exeant." — Epist.  ad  Fratres. 


302  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

not  those  of  the  whole  Church."  And  thereupon  he  accused 
his  former  brethren,  as  with  so  many  heresies,  of  making  the 
sign  of  the  cross  upon  their  spoons,  when  eating ;  of  asking 
a  blessing  in  entering  or  leaving  any  monastic  building  ; 
and  of  multiplying  prayers  at  mass.  He  insisted  especially 
against  the  Irish  tonsure,  which  Columbanus  had  introduced 
into  France,  and  which  consisted  solely  in  shaving  the  front 
of  the  head  from  one  ear  to  the  other,  without  touching  the 
hair  of  the  back  part,  while  the  Greeks  shaved  the  entire 
head,  and  the  Romans  only  the  crown,  leaving  the  hair  in 
the  form  of  a  crown  round  the  lower  part  of  the  head.  This 
last  custom,  as  is  well  known,  became  the  prevalent  one  in 
all  the  religious  orders  of  the  West.^ 

Eustace  had  no  difficulty  in  justifying  the  customs  of 
Luxeuil,  and  in  discomfiting  the  violence  of  his  accuser. 
But  as  Agrestin  always  returned  to  the  charge,  the  abbot  said 
to  him :  "  In  presence  of  these  bishops,  I,  the  disciple  and 
successor  of  him  whose  institute  thou  condemnest,  cite  thee 
to  appear  with  him,  within  a  year,  at  the  tribunal  of  God, 

^  "  Se  hue  illucque  vertit.  .  .  .  Canino  dente  garriens  ac  veluti  coenosa 
sus.  .  .  .  Ait  siiperflna  quccdam  et  canonicas  institutioni  aliena.  .  .  .  Coch- 
leam  quam  lamberent  crebro  crucis  signo  signari.  .  .  .  Prorupit  dicens  se 
scire  Columbanum  a  cseterorum  more  desciscere." — Jonas,  Vita  S.  Eustas., 
c.  9-10.  The  tonsure  had  been  recognised,  from  apostolic  times,  as  sym- 
bolical of  the  religious  vow,  as  is  proved  by  the  sacred  text  relative  to  the 
Jew  Aquila,  who  was  Paul's  host  at  Corinth  :  "  Navigavit  in  Syriam  et  cum 
eo  Priscilla  et  Aquila,  qui  dhi  totonderat  in  Cenchris  caput :  habebat  enim 
votum." — Act.  xviii.  18.  Some  years  after  the  Synod  of  Macon,  the  Coun- 
cil of  Toledo,  in  633,  regulated  the  form  of  the  tonsure,  and  of  that  circle 
of  short  hair  round  the  head,  called  corona  dericalis.  It  appears  that  the 
nuns  were  not  always  constrained  to  sacrifice  their  long  hair,  like  the 
monks.  This  is  shown  in  the  curious  anecdote  related  by  Hildegaire, 
Bishop  of  Meaux  in  the  ninth  century,  in  the  life  of  his  predecessor,  St. 
Faron.  The  holy  bishop,  wishing  to  see  his  wife  again,  from  whom  he  had 
been  obliged  to  separate  in  order  to  become  a  bishop,  and  who  lived  as  a 
nun  in  a  villa  of  his  patrimony,  she,  for  fear  of  exciting  a  culpable  regret 
in  the  mind  of  her  husband,  ' '  se  totondit  totam  CEesariem  capitis,  in  quo 
consistebat  ornamentum  pulchrius  corporis."  The  precaution  succeeded 
so  well,  that  Faron,  seeing  her  thus  shaven,  "  amarissimo  tsedio  exhorruit." 
—Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  592. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  303 

to  plead  thy  cause  against  him,  and  to  learn  and  know  the 
justice  of  Him  whose  servant  thou  hast  attempted  to  calum- 
niate." The  solemnity  of  this  appeal  had  an  effect  even 
upon  the  prelates  who  leant  to  Agrestin's  side :  they  urged 
him  to  be  reconciled  to  his  former  abbot,  and  the  latter, 
who  was  gentleness  itself,  consented  to  give  him  the  kiss  of 
peace.  But  this  goodness  did  not  benefit  Agrestin.  Hope- 
less of  succeeding  at  Luxeuil  itself,  he  sowed  revolt  and 
calumny  in  the  other  monasteries  which  had  proceeded, 
like  Luxeuil,  from  the  colonising  genius  of  Columbanus,  at 
Remiremont  and  Faremoutier.  But,  before  the  end  of  the 
year,  he  was  slain  with  a  blow  of  an  axe  by  a  slave,  whose 
wife,  it  is  believed,  he  had  intended  to  dishonour.^ 

The  bishops  of  the  Council  of  Macon,  and  the  Bishop 
of  Geneva  above  all  others,  became  from  that  time  the 
champions  and  protectors  of  the  institute  of  St.  Columbanus. 
Like  them,  many  other  prelates  of  Gaul  distinguished  them- 
selves by  their  eagerness  in  founding  or  protecting  new 
monasteries  destined  to  extend  or  practise  the  Irish  rule. 
The  glory  of  Columbanus  and  Luxeuil  came  forth  uninjured, 
and  indeed  increased,  from  this  trial.  However,  although 
no  contemporary  document  expressly  says  as  much,  it  is 
evident  that  from  that  time  the  heads  of  the  institution 
perceived  the  necessity  of  softening  the  intense  individuality 
of  their  founder's  spirit.  Through  the  passionate  and  ex- 
aggerated accusations  of  Agrestin,  their  eyes  were  opened 
to  the  dangers  of  isolation,  even  in  what  were  apparently 
unimportant  details  of  observance  and  regular  discipline. 
They  perceived,  with  profound  Christian  sagacity,  that  they 
must  give  up  the  thought  of  extending  the  Rule  of  their 
master  everywhere,  and  as  the  only  monastic  code.  They 
knew  that  by  their  side  a  Eule  more  ancient  than  their  own, 
and  fortified  by  the  formal  approbation  of  the  Roman  pontiff, 
lived  and  flourished,  without  brilliant  success  it  is  true,  up 
to  that  time,  but  not  without  fruit  or  honour.  By  what 
^  Jonas,  c.  12-16. 


304  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

means  was  the  abbey  of  Luxeuil  brought  into  contact  with 
the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict  ?  By  what  argument  did  this 
powerful  and  celebrated  house  open  her  doors  to  another 
glory  and  authority  than  that  of  her  founder  ?  There  is  no 
answer  to  this  question :  ^  but  it  is  certain  that,  under  the 
successor  of  Eustace,  who  died  a  year  after  the  Council  of 
Macon,  and  after  that  time,  in  the  numerous  foundations  of 
which  we  have  still  to  speak,  the  two  Rules  almost  always 
appear  together,  as  the  joint  bases  of  communities  originated 
by  the  disciples  of  Columbanus.^  The  monastic  republic  of 
Gaul,  which  apparently  ought  to  have  recognised  only  one 
dictator,  henceforth  was  to  have  two  consuls,  like  the  Roman 
republic  of  old. 

The  successor  of  Eustace  was  Walbert,  also  a  pupil  and 
companion  of  Columbanus.  Born  of  Sicambrian  race,  of  a 
noble  and  wealthy  family,  he  had  been  remarked  for  his 
bravery  in  war,  before  he  enrolled  himself  in  the  army  of 
the  Irish  missionary.  But  the  attraction  of  the  cloister 
overcame  the  warlike  inclinations  of  the  Frank.  When  his 
mind  was  made  up,  he  went  to  Luxeuil,  taking  with  him 
not  only  a  gift  of  all  his  vast  domains,  but  also  his  military 
dress,  of  which  he  would  only  divest  himself  in  the  monas- 
tery itself  :  he  offered  also  the  arms  with  which  he  had 
won  his  fame,  which  were  suspended  from  the  arches  of  the 

1  There  is  nothing  to  authorise  the  account  of  Orderic  Vital,  who,  five 
centuries  subsequent  to  the  foundation  of  Luxeuil,  asserts  that  St.  Maur — 
who  died  in  584 — was  known  by  the  disciples  of  St.  Columbanus,  who  died 
in  615  ;  but  it  will  gratify  our  readers  to  quote  here  a  passage  from  that 
historian,  who  thus  explains  the  effect  produced  on  monastic  posterity  by 
the  fusion  of  the  two  institutions  : — "  Ip.si  (the  disciples  of  Columbanus) 
reor,  B.  Maurum  ejusque  socios  et  discipulos  noverunt,  utpote  vicini,  et  ab 
ipsis  sicut  ab  aliis  scripta  doctorum,  Eedificationis  causa,  sancti  normam 
suscepere  Bcnedicti,  ita  tamen  ut  non  ahhorrerent  sui  statuta  magistri,  almi 
videlicet  Columbani.  Ab  ipso  siquidem  modum  divinae  servitutis  et  ordinem 
didicerunt,  et  formam  orationum  ;  .  .  .  nigredinem  vcstium  aliasque  obser- 
vationes  sumpserunt  quas  pro  religione  et  honestate  ipsius  tenuerunt,  et 
sequaccs  eorum  usque  in  hodiemum  reverenter  observare  appetunt." — 
Orderic  Vital,  Hist.  Eccles.,  lib.  viii.  c.  27. 

2  MabillON,  Prcef.  in  II.  Sccc,  c,  15  ;  Prcef.  in  IV.  Scec,  c.  126,  127, 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  305 

church,  and  remained  there  during  the  course  of  ages,  as  a 
monument  of  the  noblest  victory  which  a  man  can  achieve 
here  below.^  He  obtained  permission  from  Eustace  to  live 
alone  in  the  hollow  of  a  rock,  near  a  fountain  in  the  midst 
of  the  wood,  three  miles  from  the  abbey.  It  was  here  that, 
after  the  death  of  Columbanus's  first  successor  Eustace,  and 
the  refusal  of  Gall  to  accept  the  office,  the  monks  of  Luxeuil 
sought  Walbert  to  make  him  their  third  abbot.  He  ruled 
them  for  forty  years  with  honour  and  success.  We  shall  see 
hereafter  the  sympathy  which  existed  between  Walbert  and 
Bathild,  the  holy  regent  of  the  three  Frank  kingdoms,  and 
the  power  he  was  supposed  to  have  over  her.  His  name 
remains,  in  the  surrounding  countries,  the  most  popular  of 
all  those  who  have  done  honour  to  the  great  abbey  of 
Sequania.  He  maintained  discipline  and  encouraged  pro- 
found study,  while  he  increased  the  property  of  the  com- 
munity, by  his  own  donations  in  the  first  place,  and  then 
by  those  which  the  reputation  of  the  monastery  attracted 
from  all  sides. 

To  the  temporal  independence  thus  secured,  was  soon 
added  a  sort  of  spiritual  independence  eagerly  sought  by 
all  the  great  monasteries,  and  which  they  spared  no  pains 
in  soliciting  either  from  the  popes  or  provincial  councils. 
Their  object  was  to  protect  themselves,  by  a  solemn  privi- 
lege, from  the  vexatious  abuses  of  authority,  which  the 
diocesan  bishop,  by  right  of  his  spiritual  authority,  could 
subject  them  to,  by  taking  up  his  abode  among  them  against 
their  will,  with  a  numerous  retinue,  by  making  them  pay  a 
very  high  price  for  the  holy  chrism  and  the  ordination  of 

"  Vir  egregius  ex  genere  Sicambrorum."— Fito  S.  German.  Grandiv.,  ap. 
Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  491.  "Cujus  annos  adolescentiaj  in  armis 
tradunt  excellentissime  floruisse  .  .  .  inclyta  prosapia  clarissimus  . 
hommibus  et  rerum  dignitate  juxta  natales  suos  distissimus  .  .  .  miles 
optimus  inter  fasces  constitutus  et  arma  .  .  .  armisque  depositis  quje 
usque  hodie  (in  the  time  of  Adson,  about  950)  in  testimonium  sacr^ 
mihtise  ejus  in  eo  loco  habentur."— Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  iv  p  411  The 
hermitage  in  which  St.  Walbert  passed  the  first  years  of  his  conversion  is 
still  to  be  seen  at  some  distance  from  Luxeuil.     He  died  in  66^ 

VOL.  n.  u 


3o6  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

their  brethren,  or,  above  all,  by  obstructing  the  freedom  of 
their  elections.  Lerins  had  obtained  this  privilege  from  the 
Council  of  Aries  in  451,  and  Agaune  from  the  Council  of 
Chalon  in  579.  Luxeuil  could  not  fail  to  feel  the  import- 
ance of  the  same  rights  and  the  same  necessities. 

Under  the  abbacy  of  Walbert,  and  upon  a  petition 
made  in  the  name  of  King  Clovis  II.,  then  a  minor,  Pope 
John  IV.  accorded  the  privilege  of  exemption  from  episcopal 
authority  "  to  the  monastery  of  St.  Peter  founded,"  says  the 
pontifical  act,  "  by  the  venerable  Columbanus,  a  Scot,  who 
came  a  stranger,  but  fervent  in  zeal  and  sanctity  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  Franks.  ...  If,  which  God  forbid,  the 
monks  of  the  said  monastery  should  become  lukewarm  in 
the  love  of  God  and  observance  of  the  institutes  of  their 
father,  they  shall  be  punished  by  the  abbot,  that  is,  by  the 
father  of  the  monastery ;  and  if  he  himself  should  fall  into 
indifference,  and  contempt  of  the  paternal  rule,  the  Holy 
See  shall  provide  for  that."  ^ 

Six  hundred  monks  formed,  under  the  cross  of  Walbert, 
the  permanent  garrison  of  this  monastic  citadel,  from  whence 
missionaries,  solitary  or  in  parties,  issued  daily  to  found  new 

1  Mabillon  found  a  fragment  of  the  text  of  this  bull  in  the  archives  of 
Montierender  :  he  has  completed  it  from  the  diplomas  of  the  subsequent 
popes,  and  published  it  in  his  Annal.  Bened.,  t.  xiii.  No.  11,  and  Append., 
No.  18.  The  bull  of  John  IV.  has  been  disputed  by  Brequigny,  in  his 
Biplomata  CliartcE,  &c.,  1791,  folio,  pp.  186-188.  Admitting  that  it  may  be 
interpolated,  it  is  certain  that  the  exemption  granted  to  Luxeuil  was,  in 
fact,  neither  less  solemn  nor  less  extensive  than  those  of  Lerins  and 
Agaune.  It  is  instanced  in  the  same  terms  in  the  Formulas  of  Marculph 
relative  to  exemptions  (book  i,  tit.  i),  and  in  all  the  privileges  granted  in 
the  seventh  century,  such  as  those  of  St.  Denys,  Corbie,  &c.  Mabillon 
himself  admits  that  the  bull  of  Pope  John  IV.  can  only  be  a  confirmation 
of  previous  exemptions,  and  this  is  the  most  probable  supposition,  seeing 
that  mention  had  been  already  made  of  the  privilege  of  Luxeuil  in  the 
charter  granted  to  Rebais  by  Dagobert  I.  in  634.  We  may  be  permitted  to 
decline  any  discussion  of  the  document,  entirely  foreign  to  the  question, 
by  which  a  lamented  and  distinguished,  but  paradoxical  writer,  the  Count 
Alexis  de  Saint- I'riest,  in  his  Histoire  de  la  RoyauU,  t.  ii.  p.  157,  supposed 
himself  able  to  prove  his  theory  of  the  imaginary  opposition  between  Rome 
and  Luxeuil. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  307 

monastic  colonies  at  a  distance.  There  even  came  a  time 
when  the  throng  of  monks  seeking  entrance  seems  to  have 
embarrassed  Walbert,  and  when  he  sought  means  of  placing 
them  elsewhere  and  at  a  distance.  For  under  him,  even 
more  than  under  his  predecessors,  the  productiveness  of 
Luxeuil  became  prodigious.  It  was  at  this  period  particu- 
larly, as  says  a  contemporary,  that,  throughout  the  whole  of 
Gaul,  in  the  castles  and  cities,  in  plains  and  in  deserts, 
armies  of  monks  and  colonies  of  nuns  abounded  everywhere, 
carrying  with  them  the  glory  and  the  laws  of  Benedict  and 
Columbanus.'^ 

It  would  be  a  hard  task  to  trace  the  faithful  picture  of 
that  monastic  colonisation  of  Gaul,  which  had,  during  the 
whole  of  the  seventh  century,  its  centre  in  Luxeuil.  A 
single  glance  must  suffice  here.  To  find  our  way  through 
this  labyrinth,  it  is  necessary  to  survey  rapidly  the  principal 
provinces  which  received,  one  after  another,  the  benefits  of 
this  pacific  conquest.  This  rapid  course  will  permit  us  to 
breathe  the  perfume  of  some  of  those  flowers  of  exquisite 
charity  and  sweet  humbleness,  which  blossomed  amid  the 
savage  violence  and  brutal  cruelty  of  which  Christendom  was 
then  the  theatre.  It  will  show  us  also  how  many  obstacles 
and  dangers  these  men  of  peace  and  prayer  had  to  surmount, 
and  how,  subdued  under  the  yoke  of  the  monastic  rule,  in 
solitude  or  in  the  community  of  the  cloister,  the  Franks  who 
gave  themselves  to  God  under  the  laws  of  Columbanus  or 
Benedict,  allowed  neither  the  generous  courage  nor  the 
proud  independence  of  their  fathers  to  degenerate  in  them ; 
how  they  displayed,   above    all,    in    every    encounter,    that 

1  "Cernens  .  .  .  Waldebertus  certatim  undique  catervas  monachorum 
coadunari,  ccepit  de  tam  plurima  multitudine  si  forte  ubi  ubi  posset  loca 
uberrima  ubi  de  suis  monachis  ad  habitandum  adunare  exquirere. "—Fito 
S.  Germ.  Grandiv.,  c.  8.  "  Walberti  tempore  per  Galliarum  provincias 
agmina  monachorum  et  sacrarum  virginum  examina  non  solum  per  agros, 
villas,  vicosque  atque  castella,  verum  etiam  per  eremi  vastitatem  ex  regula 
duntaxat  Benedicti  et  Columbani  pullulare  cceperunt,  cum  ante  illud 
tempus  vix  pauca  illis  reperirentur  locis."—  Vita  S.  Salabergce,  ap.  Act.  SS. 
Oed.  Bened.,  saec.  ii.  t.  ii.  p.  407. 


308  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

individual  energy  and  initiative  force  which  was  character- 
istic of  the  Germanic  races,  and  which  alone  could  regenerate 
the  West,  so  long  sunk  under  the  ignoble  burden  of  Roman 
decrepitude. 

But  before  studying  the  action  of  Columbanus  and  his 
followers  upon  the  Frank  and  Burgundian  nobility  at  a 
distance,  we  find,  not  far  from  Luxeuil,  a  great  foundation 
due  to  one  of  those  Irish  monks  who  were  the  faithful  com- 
panions of  him  who,  four  centuries  after  his  death,  was  still 
called  "  the  king  of  monks  and  conductor  of  the  chariot  of 
God."  It  will  be  recollected  that,  at  his  expulsion  from 
Luxeuil,  the  Irish  monks  alone  were  permitted  to  follow  him. 
One  of  them,  then  advanced  in  years,  and  believed  to  have 
been  a  brother  of  St.  Gall,  whose  Celtic  name  has  dis- 
appeared under  the  Latin  appellation  of  Deicolus  or  Desle 
(servant  of  God),  when  he  had  reached  with  Columbanus 
a  place  covered  with  brushwood,  some  miles  distant  from 
Luxeuil,  upon  the  road  to  Besancon,  felt  his  limbs  fail,  and 
perceived  that  he  could  go  no  farther.  Throwing  himself 
at  the  feet  of  his  abbot,  he  asked  and  obtained  permission, 
with  the  blessing  of  Columbanus,  to  accomplish  his  pil- 
grimage in  this  desert.  After  a  tearful  separation,  when 
he  found  himself  alone,  he  set  out  to  find  a  place  of  rest  in 
the  forest.  Searching  through  the  thicket,  he  met  a  flock 
of  swine,  the  herdsman  of  which  was  thunderstruck  at  sight 
of  this  stranger  of  great  height,  and  clad  in  a  costume 
unknown  to  him.  "  Who  are  you  ?  "  asked  the  swineherd, 
"  whence  come  you  ?  what  seek  you  ?  what  are  you  doing 
in  this  wild  country  without  guide  or  companion  ?  "  "  Be 
not  afraid,  my  brother,"  said  the  old  Irishman,  "  I  am  a 
traveller  and  a  monk ;  and  I  beg  you  for  charity  to  show 
me  hereabouts  a  place  where  a  man  may  live."  The  swine- 
herd answered  him,  that  in  this  neighbourhood  the  only 
place  he  knew  was  marshy,  but  still  habitable,  because  of 
the  abundance  of  water,  and  belonged  to  a  powerful  vassal 
called  Werfair.     He  refused,  however,  to  guide  him  to  it, 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  309 

lest  his  flock  should  stray  in  his  absence  ;  but  Desle  insisted, 
and  said,  with  that  daring  gaiety  which  we  still  find  among 
the  Irish,  "  If  thou  do  me  this  little  favour,  I  answer  for  it 
that  thou  shalt  not  lose  the  very  least  of  thy  herd ;  my  staff 
shall  replace  thee,  and  be  swineherd  in  thy  absence."  And 
thereupon  he  stuck  his  traveller's  staff  into  the  ground, 
round  which  the  swine  collected  and  lay  down  ;  upon  which 
the  two  set  out  through  the  wood,  the  Irish  monk  and  the 
Burgundian  swineherd,  and  thus  was  discovered  and  taken 
possession  of  the  site  of  the  existing  town  of  Lure,  and  of 
that  great  monastery  of  the  same  name,  the  abbot  of  which, 
eleven  centuries  after  this  adventure,  was  reckoned  among 
the  princes  of  the  holy  Roman  empire.'^ 

But  Desle  was  not  at  the  end  of  his  difficulties.  Near 
his  new  retreat  was  a  little  church,  frequented  by  the  shep- 
herds and  peasants  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  served  by  a 
secular  priest,  who  saw  the  arrival  of  the  disciple  of  Colum- 
banus  in  these  regions  with  an  evil  eye :  "  This  monk,"  he 
said,  "  will  interfere  with  my  living."  And  he  told  his 
hearers  that  this  stranger  was  a  magician,  who  hid  himself 
in  the  wood  that  he  might  give  himself  up  to  his  incanta- 
tions, "  and  that  he  had  come  at  midnight,  under  pretence 
of  praying,  to  my  chapel,  the  doors  of  which  I  had  closed  in 
vain  :  a  single  word  from  him  sufficed  to  open  them."  The 
priest  afterwards  denounced  him  to  Werfair,  the  lord  of 
the  place,  asking  him  if  he  was  disposed  to  allow  a  certain 
foreign  monk  to  take  possession  of  his  chapel,  without  any  one 
being  able  to  put  him  out  of  it.  With  that  brutal  ferocity 
which  constantly  reappeared  among  these  baptized  Barbarians, 
Werfair  commanded  that  the  stranger  should  be  seized  if 
possible,  and  that  the  punishment  of  castration  should  be 
inflicted  on  him.  But  before  that  impious  order  could  be 
obeyed,  he  was  himself  suddenly  seized  with  shameful  and 
mortal  sickness.      His  pious  widow,  in  the  hope  of  softening 

^  See  the  article  "  Chapitres  Nobles  de  Lure  et  de  Murbach  Reunis,"  in 
the  France  EccUsiastique  for  the  year  1788,  p.  78. 


3IO  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

divine  justice  towards  the  soul  of  her  husband,  made  a  gift 
of  all  the  land  which  surrounded  the  site  of  Lure  to  the 
monk  who  called  himself  the  traveller  of  Christ,  and  nume- 
rous disciples  soon  came  to  live  by  his  side  a  life  of  peace 
and  prayer.  Their  pious  solitude  was  one  day  disturbed,  as 
has  already  been  mentioned,  by  King  Clotaire  II.,  whose 
name  perpetually  recurs  in  the  history  of  Columbanus  and 
his  disciples.  As  the  king  was  one  day  hunting  in  a  royal 
domain  near  Lure,  a  boar,  pursued  by  the  nobles  of  his  train, 
took  refuge  in  the  cell  of  Desle.  The  saint  laid  his  hand  upon 
its  head,  saying,  "  Since  thou  comest  to  ask  charity,  thy  life 
shall  be  saved."  The  king,  when  told  of  it  by  the  hunters 
who  had  followed  the  animal,  desired  to  see  that  wonder  for 
himself.  When  he  knew  that  the  old  recluse  was  a  disciple 
of  that  Columbanus  whom  he  had  always  honoured  and 
protected,  he  inquired  affectionately  what  means  of  subsist- 
ence the  abbot  and  his  companions  could  find  in  that  soli- 
tude. "  It  is  written,"  said  the  Irishman,  "  that  nothing 
shall  be  wanting  to  those  who  fear  God ;  we  lead  a  poor 
life,  but  with  the  fear  of  God  it  suffices  for  us."  Clotaire 
bestowed  upon  the  new  community  all  the  forests,  pasturage, 
and  fisheries  possessed  by  the  public  treasury  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Lure,  which  became  from  that  time,  and  always 
remained,  one  of  the  richest  monasteries  in  Christendom.^ 


1  "  Cum  monarches  atque  auriga  Dei  Columbanus.  .  .  .  Pedibus  vehe- 
menter  debilitari  ccepit.  .  .  .  Bubulcus  videns  tam  procerse  staturse  virum 
et  antea  invisi  habitus  veste  circumdatum.  .  .  .  Ne  paveas,  frater :  pere- 
grinus  ego  sum  ;  monachicum  propositum  gero.  .  .  .  Fustem  meum  con- 
stituo  custodem  vicarium.  .  .  .  Heu  mihi !  propter  unum  monachum  jam 
hie  vivere  non  possum.  .  .  .  Latitat  quidam  in  hac  silvula  monachus 
quidam  peregrinus,  qui  nescio  quibus  incantationibus  utitur.  .  .  .  Placet 
tibi  ut  monachus  quidam  capellulam  tuam  sibi  vindicet.  .  .  .  Idem 
membrum  quod  famulo  Dei  praecidi  jussit  mox  illi  in  tumorem  versum 
est.  .  .  .  Peregrinus  sum  pro  Christo.  .  .  .  Curtem  fiscumque  regalem. 
.  .  .  Credi  mihi,  quia  ad  charitatem  confugisti,  hodie  vita  non  priva- 
beris.  .  .  .  Kex  subjunxit :  Et  unde,  pater  venerande,  vivis,  vel  hi  qui 
tecum  sunt  ?  .  .  .  Pauperem  vitam  gerimus."— Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p. 
95-99.     This  legend,  written  in  the  tenth  century,  and  which  contains  very 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  3  I  I 

Lure  and  Luxeuil  were  situated  in  the  north  of  ancient 
Sequania,  then  included  in  the  kingdom  of  Burgundy,  of 
which,  as  well  as  Austrasia,  Clotaire  II.  had  become  the 
master.  The  whole  of  that  wide  and  beautiful  district  of 
Burgundy  which  retains  its  name,  and  which,  to  the  west 
and  east  of  the  river  Saone,  has  since  formed  the  duchy,  and 
particularly  the  county  of  Burgundy,  was  naturally  the  first 
to  yield  to  the  influence  of  Luxeuil.  This  district  was, 
from  the  time  of  Columbanus,  governed,  or  rather  possessed, 
by  a  powerful  family  of  Burgonde  origin,  whose  connection 
with  Columbanus  and  his  disciples  demonstrated  once  more 
the  powerful  influence  exercised  upon  the  Frank  nobility  by 
the  great  Irish  monk.  This  house  was  represented  by  two 
brothers,  who  both  bore  the  title  of  duke  :  the  one,  Amalgar, 
was  duke  of  Burgundy  to  the  west  and  north  of  the  Doubs ; 
the  other,  Waldelen  or  Wandelin,  lived  at  Besanpon,  and  his 
duchy  extended  to  the  other  side  of  Jura,  and  as  far  as  the 
Alps.^  Waldelen  and  his  wife  suffered  much  from  having 
no  children  to  whom  to  leave  their  immense  possessions. 
The  renown  of  the  first  miracles  and  great  sanctity  of  the 
Irish  monk,  who  had  established  himself  not  far  from  Besan- 
gon,  drew  them  to  Luxeuil.  They  went  to  ask  him  to  pray 
for  them,  and  to  obtain  them  a  son  from  the  Lord.     "  I  will 

curious  details  of  the  spoliations  to  which  the  abbey  was  subjected  under 
the  last  Carlovingians,  adds  that,  before  his  death,  Desle  went  to  Rome  to 
seek  a  privilege  from  the  Holy  See  to  oppose  the  rapacity  of  the  Burgun- 
dians  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  foundation,  whose  usurpations  he  feared, 
although  admitting  their  liberality.  But  the  mention  made  of  this  privi- 
lege of  a  Roman  emperor  in  the  seventh  century  sufficiently  proves  its 
falsehood. 

^  The  following  table  appears  indispensable  to  explain  the  narrative  :— 
I.  N.,  Burguadian  noble. 


II.  Waldelen,  duke  at  Besangon,  II.  Amaloaire,  duke  in  Burgundy, 

married  Flavia,  married  Aquiline, 

from  whom—  from  whom— 

I                                         ^1  I                             I  1 

III.  DoNATUS,  bishop    III.  Ramalen,  duke  III.  Adalric,    III.  Walda-  III.  Adal- 

of  Besangon,  founder        after  his  father,  re-  duke  after  his        len,  first  ab-  kind,  ab- 

of    St.    Paul   and    of        storer  of   Romain-  father.                    bob   of   Beze.  bess       of 

Jussamoutier.    t  660.       Moutier.  t  about  680,  Bregille. 


312  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

do  it  willingly,"  said  the  saint ;  "  and  I  will  ask  not  only  one, 
but  several,  on  condition  that  you  give  me  the  first-born, 
that  I  may  baptize  him  with  my  own  hands,  and  dedicate 
him  to  the  Lord."  The  promise  was  made,  and  the  mercy 
obtained.  The  duchess  herself  carried  her  first-born  to 
Luxeuil,  where  Columbanus  baptized  him,  giving  him  the 
name  of  Donat  (Donahis)  in  testimony  of  the  gift  which  his 
parents  had  made  of  him  to  God.  He  was  restored  to  his 
mother  to  be  nursed,  and  then  brought  back  to  be  trained  in 
the  monastery,  where  the  child  grew  up,  and  remained  until, 
thirty  years  after,  he  was  taken  from  it  to  be  made  Bishop 
of  Besanpon.  In  that  metropolitan  city,  where  the  exile  of 
Columbanus  had  doubtless  left  popular  recollections,  Donatus, 
out  of  love  for  his  spiritual  father,  established  a  monastery 
of  men  under  the  rule  of  Columbanus,  and  dedicated  to  St. 
Paul,  as  Luxeuil  was  to  St.  Peter.  He  added,  however,  to 
the  observance  of  the  rule  of  the  founder  of  Luxeuil,  that 
of  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  which  was  introduced  about  the 
same  period  at  Luxeuil  itself.  He  himself  lived  there  as 
a  monk,  always  wearing  the  monastic  dress.  Afterwards, 
with  the  help  of  his  mother,  and  also  in  his  episcopal  city 
of  Besanpon,  he  originated  the  monastery  of  Jussamoutier 
for  nuns,  giving  them  a  rule  in  which  that  of  St.  CaBsarius, 
which  we  have  already  seen  adopted  by  Radigund  at  Poitiers, 
was  combined  with  various  arrangements  borrowed  from  the 
rules  of  Columbanus  and  Benedict.^  The  Latin  of  the  pre- 
amble, which  was  written  by  Donatus  himself,  does  honour 
to  the  school  of  Luxeuil.      The  daughters  of  Jussamoutier 

1  "Utrique  erant  ex  nobili  Burguudiorum  prosapia." — Ancient  Breviary 
of  Besanc,on,  'printed  in  1489.  "  Matri  iid  nutriendum  reddit.  Qui  post  alitur 
in  eodem  monasterio.  .  .  .  Nunc  usque  superest  eamdem  cathedram  regens. 

.  .  Pro  amore  B.  Columbani  ex  ipsius  Regula  monasterium  virorum 
construxit." — Jonas,  Vita  S.  Colomb.,  c.  22.  Holstein,  Codex  Reguiarum. 
Compare  Mabillon,  Prcef.  in  IV.  Scec.,  §  125,  and  the  Vies  des  Saints  de 
Franche-Comti,  vol.  i.  p.  186,  and  Appendix,  n.  6,  7,  and  8.  Of  the  ancient 
abbey  of  St.  Paul,  at  Besan9on,  there  remain  only  some  fragments  of  the 
church,  which  have  been  transferred  to  the  court  of  the  library.  The  abbey 
of  Jussamoutier  is  now  a  barrack  for  gens-d'armes. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  313 

rivalled  the  monks  of  Luxeuil  in  zeal  and  fervour,  but  they 
asked  expressly  that  the  laws  of  the  two  patriarchs  should 
be  modified  so  as  to  suit  the  difference  of  sex.  They  do  not 
seem,  however,  to  have  objected  to  any  of  the  severities  of 
Irish  tradition,  for  we  see  with  surprise,  in  that  version  of 
the  three  rules  adapted  to  their  use,  the  penalty  of  fifty  or 
even  a  hundred  lashes  inflicted  upon  these  virgins  for  cer- 
tain faults  against  discipline.  The  wiser  and  gentler  rule 
of  Benedict  gained  ground,  notwithstanding,  at  each  new 
manifestation  of  religious  life. 

The  younger  brother  of  Donatus,  Ramelen,  who  succeeded 
his  father  as  duke  of  Transjuran  Burgundy,  signalised  his 
reverence  for  the  memory  of  Columbanus  by  the  foundation 
or  reconstruction  of  the  abbey  of  Romain-Moutier,  in  a  pass 
on  the  southern  side  of  Jura,  consecrated  to  prayer,  two  cen- 
turies before,  by  the  founder  of  Condat.^  He  introduced  a 
colony  from  Luxeuil  there  :  the  ancient  church,  often  rebuilt, 
exists  still :  it  has  served  as  a  model  to  an  entire  order  of 
primitive  churches,  and  the  basis  of  an  ingenious  and  new 
system,  which  characterises  the  date  and  style  of  the  prin- 
cipal Christian  monuments  between  Jura  and  the  Alps.^ 

We  have  said  that  the  father  of  St.  Donatus  had  a  brother, 
another  lord,  Amalgaire,  whose  duchy  extended  to  the  gates 
of  Besanpon.  This  last  had  two  children,  who,  like  their 
cousins,  are  connected  with  Luxeuil.  The  son,  named  Wal- 
delen,   like   his   uncle,  was   also   entrusted   to   the  care  of 

1  See  before,  vol.  i.  p.  364.  "Pro  amore  beati  viri  Columbani." — Jonas, 
c.  22. 

2  Histoire  de  l' Architecture  Sacree  du  IV  au  x^  Siecle  dans  les  Anciens 
Eveches  de  Geneve,  Lausanne  et  Sion,  by  J.-D.  BlaVIGNAC,  1853.  This  church 
was  certainly  built  in  the  eighth  century,  when  Pope  Stephen  II.  consecrated 
it  in  753,  and  commanded  the  abbey,  where  he  had  lived  for  some  time,  to 
be  called  the  Roman  Monastery,  playing  upon  the  name  which  it  already  bore 
in  honour  of  its  first  founder,  St.  Remain  of  Condat.  It  became  in  the  tenth 
century  a  priory  of  Cluny.  Compare  the  Vies  des  Saints  de  Franche-Comti, 
vol.  i.  p.  598,  vol.  iii.  p.  27,  and  the  cartulary  of  Eomain-Moutier,  published 
by  the  learned  Baron  de  Gingins,  in  vol.  xiv.  of  the  M^moires  de  la  Sociite 
d' Histoire  de  la  Suisse  Romande. 


314  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

Columbanus,  and  became  a  monk  at  Luxeuil,  from  whence 
his  father  took  him  to  put  him  at  the  head  of  the  abbey  of 
Beze,  which  he  had  founded  in  honour  of  God,  St.  Peter,  and 
St.  Paul,  between  the  Saone  and  the  Tille,  near  a  fountain 
still  known  and  admired  for  the  immense  sheet  of  water 
which  gushes  from  it,  and  to  the  east  of  a  forest  called  the 
Velvet  Forest,  a  name  which  preserves  to  our  own  days  a  trace 
of  the  impression  produced  by  its  thick  verdure  upon  the 
admiring  popular  mind,  at  a  time  when  a  common  mind 
seems  to  have  been  more  observant  than  now  of  certain 
beauties.  The  new  abbot  carried  the  rule  of  Columbanus 
to  Beze,  and  maintained  it  for  fifty  years  in  that  sanctuary, 
which  was  long  to  hold  its  place  in  the  first  rank  of  French 
monasteries.  When  his  eldest  brother,  who  had  succeeded 
to  the  duchy  of  his  father,  compromised  in  the  civil  wars  of 
the  time  of  Ebroi'n,  had  to  flee  into  Austrasia,  Waldelen  col- 
lected his  property  and  joined  it  to  that  of  the  monastery. 
He  offered  an  asylum  there  to  his  sister,  Adalsind,  for  whom 
their  father,  Duke  Amalgar,  had  also  founded  an  abbey  at 
Bregille,  opposite  Besanpon  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Doubs. 
But  she  could  not  long  remain  there ;  the  annoyances  she 
met  with  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  surrounding  country 
obliged  her  to  leave  a  place  in  which  neither  the  ancient 
authority  of  her  father,  nor  her  character  of  abbess,  nor  the 
proximity  of  an  important  city  governed  by  her  family,  could 
protect  her.  This  forced  exile  is  a  proof,  among  many  others, 
of  the  obstacles  and  hostilities  too  often  encountered  by  the 
Religious  of  both  sexes,  despite  the  protection  of  kings  and 
nobles,  amid  the  unsubdued  races  who  had  invaded  the 
West.' 

While  the  various  members  of  the  most  powerful  family 
of  the  two  Burgundies  testified  thus  their  devotion  to  the 
memory  and  institute  of  Columbanus,  the  young  and  noble 
Ermenfried  obeyed  the  same  impulse  upon  a  more  modest 
scale,  amid  the  half- pagan  tribe  of  the  Varasques,  who,  fol- 
1  Chronicon  Beseunse,  ap.  D'Acheby,  Spicilegium,  vol,  ii.  p.  402. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  3 15 

lowing  the  Burgonde  invasion  from  the  banks  of  the  Rhine, 
occupied,  a  little  above  Besancon,  a  district  watered  by  the 
Doubs,  where  the  second  abbot  of  Luxeuil,  Eustace,  had 
already  attempted  their  conversion.  Ermenfried,  according 
to  the  custom  of  the  Germanic  races,  had  been  recommended 
in  his  youth,  along  with  his  brother,  to  King  Clotaire  II., 
the  friend  and  protector  of  Columbanus,  who  had  received 
him  into  his  house.  His  noble  bearing,  his  varied  know- 
ledge, and  modest  piety  gained  him  the  favour  of  this  prince. 
Clotaire  had,  besides,  entrusted  his  brother  with  the  care  of 
the  ring  which  was  his  seal-royal,  and  had  thus  constituted 
him  chancellor  of  his  court.  Ermenfried,  recalled  into  his  own 
country  to  receive  the  inheritance  of  a  wealthy  noble  of  his 
family,  had  found,  in  surveying  his  new  possessions,  a  narrow 
little  valley  where  two  clear  streams,  uniting  at  the  foot  of 
a  little  hill,  formed  into  a  tributary  of  the  Doubs,  called  the 
Cusancin,  and  where  there  had  formerly  existed,  under  the 
name  of  Cusance,  a  monastery  of  women.  Contemplating 
this  site,  he  was  filled  with  a  desire  to  raise  the  ruins  of  the 
abandoned  sanctuary,  and  to  consecrate  himself  there  to  the 
Lord.  When  he  returned  to  the  court  of  Clotaire,  the  new 
spirit  which  animated  him  soon  became  apparent.  One 
day,  when  he  appeared  before  the  king  with  his  silken  tunic 
in  disorder  and  falling  to  his  feet,  Clotaire  said  to  him, 
"  What  is  the  matter,  Ermenfried  ?  What  is  this  fashion  of 
wearing  thy  tunic  ?  Wouldst  thou  really  become  a  clerk  ?  " 
"  Yes,"  answered  the  Varasque,  "  a  clerk,  and  even  a  monk ; 
and  I  entreat  you  to  grant  me  your  permission."  The  king 
consented,  and  the  two  brothers  immediately  set  out  for 
their  solitude.  In  vain  their  mother  urged  them  to  marry 
and  perpetuate  their  race.  Ermenfried  went  to  Luxeuil  to 
be  trained  for  monastic  life  under  Walbert,  received  there 
the  monastic  frock  and  the  priesthood,  and  returned  to 
Cusance,  where  he  soon  became  the  head  of  a  community  of 
thirty  monks,  which  he  subordinated  completely  to  Luxeuil, 
and   directed  with  gentle   and   active  authority,  while   his 


3l6  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

brother,  with  whom  he  always  lived  in  the  closest  union, 
provided  for  their  temporal  necessities.  Ermenfried  reserved 
the  humbler  labours  for  himself ;  he  spent  whole  days  in 
sifting  the  grain  which  the  others  thrashed  in  the  barn. 
For  he  loved  work  and  workers.  On  Sundays,  in  celebrat- 
ing mass,  he  distributed  to  the  people  the  eulogies  or  uncon- 
secrated  wafers,  which  then  served  for  consecrated  bread. 
When  he  perceived  the  hard  hands  of  the  ploughmen,  he 
bent  down  to  kiss  with  tender  respect  these  noble  marks  of 
the  week's  labour.  I  have  surveyed  the  annals  of  all  nations, 
ancient  and  modern,  but  I  have  found  nothing  which  has 
moved  me  more,  or  better  explained  the  true  causes  of  the 
victory  of  Christianity  over  the  ancient  world,  than  the 
image  of  this  German,  this  son  of  the  victors  of  Rome  and 
conquerors  of  Gaul,  become  a  monk,  and  kissing,  before  the 
altar  of  Christ,  the  hard  hands  of  the  Gaulish  husbandmen, 
in  that  forgotten  corner  of  Jura,  without  even  suspecting 
that  an  obscure  witness  took  note  of  it  for  forgetful  pos- 
terity.^ 

Before  we  leave  Sequania,  let  us  ascend  into  the  country 
of  the  Rauraques  (the  ancient  bishopric  of  Bale).  There, 
on  the  banks  of  that  deep  and  narrow  gorge,  hollowed  by 
the  Doubs  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Jura,  upon  the  existing 
boundary  of  Switzerland  and  Franche-Comt^,  at  the  spot 
where  that  river,  having  run  since  its  source  from  south  to 
north,  makes  a  sudden  turn  towards  the  west,  before  doub- 
ling back  to  the  south,  and  forms  thus  a  sort  of  peninsula 
still  called  the  close  of  the  Doubs,  we  shall  find  the  little  town 


^  "  Dives  valde  ac  potentior  cseteris,  .  .  .  Adulti  traduntur  ad  palatium 
Clotario  regi  servituri.  .  .  .  Qui  tradidit  ei  annulum  suum,  factusque  est 
cancellarius  in  toto  palatio.  .  .  .  Sinebat  tunicam,  quod  Sericam  vocabant, 
usque  ad  medias  dependere  tibias.  .  .  .  Quid  est  hoc,  Ermenfrede  ?  cur 
tunicam  tuam  f  ers  taliter  ?  Numquid  clericus  esse  vis  ?  .  .  .  Et  clericum 
me  monachumque  fieri  opto.  ...  Si  vidisset  aliquem  operatorem  aut 
pauperrimum  crepatis  manibus,  non  ante  eulogias  dabat  quam  .  .  .  manus 
ipsas  oscularetur."— Egilbektus,  Vita  S.  Ermcnf.,  ap.  BOLLAND.,  t.  vii. 
Septemb.,  p.  120. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  317 

of  St.  Ursanne.  It  originated  in  the  choice  which  another 
disciple  of  Columbanus  made  of  that  wild  country  in  order 
to  live  there  in  solitude.  Ursicinus,  which  has  been  trans- 
formed into  Ursanne,  was  probably  Irish,  since  he  left 
Luxeuil  with  Columbanus ;  but,  like  Gall  and  Sigisbert,  he 
did  not  follow  him  into  Italy ;  and,  after  having  founded 
a  little  Christendom  upon  the  fertile  shores  of  the  Lake  of 
Bienne,  he  preferred  to  establish  himself  among  the  scarped 
rocks  covered  with  firs  which  overlook  the  upper  course  of 
the  Doubs.  Climbing  into  the  most  inaccessible  corners 
of  these  wild  gorges,  in  search  of  their  strayed  cattle,  the 
herdsmen  one  day  discovered  him,  and  told,  on  descending, 
that  they  had  found  at  the  top  of  the  mountain  a  wan  and 
emaciated  man,  like  another  St.  John  Baptist,  who  most 
surely  lived  in  community  with  the  bears,  and  was  supported 
by  them.  Thence,  doubtless,  arose  the  name  of  Ursicinus 
or  Urson,  which  has  replaced  this  monk's  Celtic  name.  In 
this  instance,  as  invariably  through  the  annals  of  monastic 
extension,  the  great  examples  of  mortification  and  spiritual 
courage,  which  excited  the  admiration  and  sympathy  of 
some,  raised  the  derision  and  hostility  of  others.  A  rich 
inhabitant  of  the  neighbourhood  drew  the  solitary  to  his 
house  on  pretence  of  hearing  him  preach  ;  and  having  made 
him  drink  wine,  to  which  he  was  not  accustomed,  the  poor 
saint  soon  became  uncomfortable  and  asked  leave  to  with- 
draw. Then  the  perfidious  host,  with  all  his  family,  began 
to  mock  the  monk  with  bursts  of  laughter,  calling  him 
glutton,  drunkard,  and  hypocrite,  and  accusing  him  as  such 
to  the  surrounding  population.  Urson  cursed  the  house  of 
the  traitor,  and  returned  to  his  solitude.  This  adventure 
brought  no  discredit  upon  him :  far  from  that,  he  had  many 
disciples,  and  the  increasing  number  of  those  who  would  live 
like  him,  and  with  him,  obliged  him  to  leave  the  huts  which 
he  had  raised  upon  the  heights,  and  to  build  his  convent  at 
the  bottom  of  the  pass  and  on  the  bank  of  the  river.  It  is 
to  be  remarked  that  he  had  here  an  hospital  for  the  sick 


3l8  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

poor,  and  kept  baggage-cattle  to  bring  them  from  a  distance 
and  through  the  steep  paths  of  these  mountains.^ 

The  little  monastery  which  our  Irishman  had  founded  was 
taken  up  and  occupied  after  his  death  by  another  colony 
from  Luxeuil,  led  by  Germain,  a  young  noble  of  Treves, 
who,  at  seventeen,  in  spite  of  king  and  bishop,  had  left  all 
to  flee  into  solitude.  He  was  of  the  number  of  those  recruits 
whose  coming  to  enrol  themselves  at  Luxeuil  alarmed  abbot 
Walbert  by  their  multitude.  The  latter,  recognising  the 
piety  and  ability  of  the  young  neophyte,  entrusted  to  him 
the  direction  of  the  monks  whom  he  sent  into  a  valley  of 
Raurasia,  of  which  Gondoin,  the  first  known  duke  of  Alsatia, 
had  just  made  him  a  gift.  This  valley,  though  fertile  and 
well  watered,  was  almost  unapproachable  :  Germain,  either 
by  a  miracle,  or  by  labours  in  which  he  himself  took  the 
principal  share,  had  to  open  a  passage  through  the  rocks 
which  formed  the  approach  of  the  defile.  The  valley  took 
the  name  of  Moustier-Grandval,  after  the  monastery,  which 
he  long  ruled,  in  conjunction  with  that  of  St.  Ursanne.  The 
abbot  of  Luxeuil,  with  the  consent  of  his  brethren,  had  ex- 
pressly freed  the  monks  whom  he  intended,  under  the 
authority  of  Germain,  to  people  the  new  sanctuary,  from  all 
obedience  to  himself.  In  the  surrounding  country,  the  bene- 
volent stranger,  who  died  a  victim  to  his  zeal  for  his  neigh- 
bour, was  everywhere  beloved.  A  new  duke  of  Alsatia, 
Adalric,  set  himself  to  oppress  the  population,  and  to  trouble 
the  monks  of  Grandval  in  every  possible  way,  treating  them 
as  rebels  to  the  authority  of  his  predecessor  and  to  his  own. 
He  approached  the  monastery  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  Ala- 
mans,  who  were  as  much  robbers  as  soldiers.  Germain, 
accompanied  by  the  librarian  of  the  community,  went  to 

1  "Velut  alterum  in  deserto  Joannem.  .  .  .  Traditio  est  ursum  super 
divi  speluncam  radices  et  herbas  attulisse.  .  .  .  Ut  vino,  cui  minima 
assueverat,  victus  ludibrio  exponatur.  .  .  .  Crebro  repetitis  poculis  urget. 
.  .  .  GulEe  et  Bacchi  voraginem  .  .  .  exsibilandum  propinare." — Compen- 
dium Vitce  S.  Ursieini,  ap.  TrouillAT,  Monuments  de  I'Ancien  Evech6  de 
Bale,  Porentruy,  1852,  t.  i.  p.  42. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  319 

meet  the  enemy.  At  the  sight  of  the  burning  houses,  and 
his  poor  neighbours  pursued  and  slaughtered  by  the  soldiers, 
he  burst  forth  into  tears  and  reproaches.  "  Enemy  of  God 
and  truth,"  he  said  to  the  duke,  "  is  it  thus  that  you  treat 
a  Christian  country  ?  and  do  you  not  fear  to  ruin  this 
monastery  which  I  have  myself  built  ?  "  The  duke  listened 
without  anger,  and  promised  him  peace.  But  as  the  abbot 
returned  to  Grandval,  he  met  some  soldiers  upon  his  way,  to 
whom  he  addressed  similar  remonstrances  :  "  Dear  sons,  do 
not  commit  so  many  crimes  against  the  people  of  God ! " 
Instead  of  appeasing,  his  words  exasperated  them ;  they 
divested  him  of  his  robes,  and  slew  him  as  well  as  his  com- 
panion.^ 

The  body  of  this  martyr  of  justice  and  charity  was  carried 
to  the  church  which  he  had  built  at  St.  Ursanne.  In  the 
interval  between  the  death  of  the  founder  of  the  abbey,  and 
that  of  the  first  martyr  of  the  illustrious  line  of  Colum- 
banus,  this  remote  monastery  had  already  felt  the  influence 
of  a  third  saint,  who,  without  passing  through  Luxeuil,  had 
nevertheless  yielded  to  the  power  of  Columbanus's  genius 
and  rule. 

Vandregisil  was  born  near  Verdun,  of  noble  and  rich 
parents,  allied  to  the  two  mayors  of  the  palace,  Erchinoald 
and  Pepin  of  Landen,  who  governed  Neustria  and  Austrasia 
under  the  authority  of  King  Dagobert  I.,  son  and  successor 
of  that  Clotaire  II.  who  had  been  always  so  favourable  to 
Columbanus  and  his  disciples.  This  relationship  had  pro- 
cured the  young  noble  a  favourable  position  in  the  court  of 

1  "  Ex  genere  senatorum  natus.  .  .  .  Locum  uberrimum,  infra  saxorum 
concava.  .  .  .  Cernens  abbas  quod  difEcilis  esset  introitus  eorum,  coepit 
saxorum  dura  manibus  quatere,  et  valvEe  utraque  parte  vallis  patuerunt  et 
sunt  intrantibus  patefactaj  usque  in  hodiernum  diem.  .  .  .  Inimice  Dei  et 
veritatis,  ingressus  es  super  homines  Christianos !  .  .  .  Per  totam  vallem 
cernens  tanquam  a  luporum  morsibus  vicinos  laniari  et  domus  eorum  in- 
cendio  coucremari,  flevit  diutissime.  .  .  .  Nolite,  filii  mei,  tantum  nefas 
perpetrare  in  populo  Dei." — Boboleni,  Vita  S.  Germani,  ap.  Tkouillat, 
Monuments  de  VEvecU  de  Bale,  t.  i.  p.  49-53,  who  has  given  a  much  more 
complete  version  of  it  than  that  of  the  A  eta  of  Mabillon. 


320  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  king,  to  whom  he  had  been  recommended  in  his  youth. 
He  became  count  of  the  palace,  that  is  to  say,  judge  of  the 
causes  referred  to  the  king,  and  collector  of  the  returns  of 
the  royal  revenue.  But  power  and  ambition  held  no  place 
in  a  heart  which  had  already  felt  the  contagion  of  the  many 
great  examples  furnished  by  the  Prank  nobility.  Refusing 
a  marriage  which  his  parents  had  arranged,  he  went  to  take 
refuge  with  a  solitary  upon  the  banks  of  the  Meuse.  Now 
the  Merovingian  kings  had  then  interdicted  the  Frank  nobles 
from  taking  the  clerical  or  monastic  habit  without  their  per- 
mission, an  interdict  founded  upon  the  military  service  due 
to  the  prince,  which  was  the  soul  of  the  social  organisation 
of  the  Germanic  races.  Dagobert  therefore  saw  with  great 
displeasure  that  a  Frank,  brought  up  in  the  royal  court,  and 
invested  with  a  public  charge,  had  thus  fled,  without  the 
consent  of  his  sovereign,  from  the  duties  of  his  rank.  He 
ordered  him  to  return.  As  Vandregisil  very  reluctantly 
approached  the  palace,  he  saw  a  poor  man  who  had  been 
thrown  from  his  cart  into  the  mud  before  the  king's  gates. 
The  passers-by  took  no  notice  of  him,  and  several  even 
trampled  on  his  body.  The  count  of  the  palace  immediately 
alighted  from  his  horse,  extended  his  hand  to  the  poor  driver, 
and  the  two  together  raised  up  the  cart.  Afterwards  he 
went  to  Dagobert,  amid  the  derisive  shouts  of  the  spectators, 
with  his  dress  stained  with  mud  ;  but  it  appeared  resplen- 
dent with  the  light  of  charity  in  the  eyes  of  the  king,  who, 
touched  by  his  humble  self-devotion,  permitted  him  to  follow 
his  vocation,  and  forbade  any  one  to  interfere  with  him. 

1  "  Comes  constituitur  palatii.  .  .  .  Ardore  parentum  honoribus  plurimis 
valde  sublimatus.  .  .  .  Rex  ...  pro  eo  quod  ipsum  hominem  Dei  in  juven- 
tute  in  suo  ministerio  habuisset,  volebat  eum  inquietare  pro  eo  quod  sine 
sua  jussione  se  tonsorasset.  .  .  .  Quidam  pauperculus  qui  vehiculum  ante 
portam  ipsius  regis  demerserat.  .  .  .  De  equo  quern  sedebat  cum  velocitate 
descendens,  et  pauperi  manum  porrexit,  et  ipsum  plaustrum  simul  de  loco 
levaverunt.  Prospicientes  vero  multi  qualiter  se  inquinaverat  de  luto  de- 
ridebant.  .  .  .  Factus  plus  candens  quam  antea  fuerat ;  pervenit  in  palatium 
regis  et  stabat  ante  eum  et  satellites  ejus  quasi  agnus  in  medio  luporum." 
—Acta  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  torn.  ii.  pp.  502-514. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  321 

When  he  was  freed  from  this  anxiety,  Vandregisil  went 
to  the  tomb  of  St.  Ursanne,  which  was  situated  on  an  estate 
belonging  to  his  house,  with  which  he  enriched  the  monas- 
tery. He  applied  himself  there  by  excessive  austerities  to 
the  subdual  of  his  flesh  ;  struggling,  for  example,  against 
the  temptations  of  his  youth,  by  plunging  during  the  winter 
into  the  snow,  or  the  frozen  waters  of  the  Doubs,  and  re- 
maining there  whilst  he  sang  the  psalms.^  Here  also  he 
found  the  trace  of  Columbanus's  example  and  instructions, 
which  led  him  from  the  side  of  Jura  across  the  Alps  to 
Bobbio,  where  he  admired  the  fervour  of  the  disciples  whom 
the  great  Irish  missionary  had  left  there.  It  was  there, 
doubtless,  that  he  conceived  so  great  an  admiration  for  the 
memory  and  observances  of  Columbanus,  that  he  determined 
on  going  to  Ireland  to  seek  in  the  country  of  the  founder 
of  Luxeuil  and  Bobbio,  the  secrets  of  penitential  life  and 
the  narrow  way.  But  God,  says  one  of  his  biographers, 
reserved  him  for  the  Gauls.  After  another  long  sojourn  in 
Romain-Moutier,  which  had  just  been  restored  under  the 
influence  of  the  spirit  of  Columbanus,  he  went  to  Eouen, 
where  Ouen,  a  holy  and  celebrated  bishop,  who  had  known 
him  at  the  court  of  Dagobert,  and  whose  youth  had  also 
felt  the  influence,  so  fertile  even  after  his  death,  of  Colum- 
banus, then  presided.  The  metropolitan  of  Rouen  would 
not  permit  a  man  distinguished  at  once  by  his  tried  virtue 
and  illustrious  birth,  to  steal  out  of  sight.  It  is  thus  that 
the  biographer  of  St.  Germain  describes  to  us  how  the  abbot 
of  Luxeuil  had  long  sought  a  monk  who  was  at  once  learned, 
holy,  and  of  noble  extraction,  to  preside  over  the  colony  of 
Grand val.^  For  it  is  evident  that  birth  was  a  quality  in- 
finitely valuable  to    the  founders  of    monastic   institutions 

^  "  Si  quando  in  ipsa  visione  nocturna  per  titillationem  carnis  illusionem 
habuisset  .  .  .  mergebat  se  in  fluvium,  et  cum  esset  hyemis  tempus  in 
medio  glacierum  psalmodiam  decantabat."— Acta  SS.  0.  S.B.,  torn.  ii.  p.  506. 

^  "  CcEpitWaldebertus  intra  semetipsum  tacitus  cogitate  si  possit  reperire 
de  suis  f ratribus,  ex  genere  nobili  .  .  .  qui  ipsos  monachos  secundum  teno- 
rem  regulse  gubernare  et  regere  deberet." — Teguillat,  op.  cit.,  p.  52. 
VOL.  II.  X 


322  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

in  these  days,  doubtless  because  it  gave  the  heads  of  the 
community  the  prestige  necessary  to  hold  out,  even  in 
material  matters,  against  the  usurpation  and  violence  of 
the  nobles  and  great  men  whose  possessions  surrounded 
the  new  monasteries.  Bishop  Ouen,  therefore,  bestowed 
holy  orders  upon  his  old  friend  and  companion,  but  without 
being  able  to  prevent  him  from  again  seeking  monastic  life. 
He  succeeded  only  in  establishing  Vandregisil  in  his  own 
diocese,  thanks  to  the  munificence  of  the  minister  Erchi- 
noald,  who  gave  up  a  great  uncultivated  estate  not  far 
from  the  Seine  to  his  kinsman,  where  the  remains  of  an 
ancient  city,  destroyed  in  the  Frank  invasion,  were  still  to 
be  seen  under  the  briars  and  thorns. 

But  the  time  of  ruins  was  past :  the  hour  of  revival  and 
reconstruction  had  come.  In  that  desert  place,  Vandregisil 
built  the  abbey  of  Fontenelle,  which  was  destined  to  occupy, 
under  its  proper  name  of  St.  Vandrille,  so  important  a  place 
in  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  France  and  Normandy.  The 
holy  queen  Bathilde,  her  son  King  Clovis  II.,  and  many 
noble  Neustrians,  added  rich  donations  to  that  of  Erchinoald, 
whilst  a  great  number  of  others  came  to  share  cenobitical 
life  under  the  authority  of  Vandregisil.  He  had  to  build 
four  churches,  amid  their  cells,  to  make  room  for  their 
devotions.  He  was  particularly  zealous  in  imposing  upon 
them,  along  with  the  exercise  of  manual  labour,  the  absolute 
renunciation  of  all  individual  property,  which  was  the  thing 
of  all  others  most  likely  to  clash  with  the  inclinations  of 
the  sons  of  soldiers  and  rich  men.  And,  says  the  hagio- 
grapher,  it  was  admirable  to  see  him  instruci:  those  who 
heretofore  had  taken  away  the  possessions  of  others,  in  the 
art  of  sacrificing  their  own.  Aided  by  their  labours,  he 
planted  on  a  neighbouring  slope  of  good  exposure  the  first 
vineyard  which  Normandy  had  known.^ 

1  "  Ansbertus  .  .  .  hortatu  viri  Dei  B.  Wandregisili  vineam  plantare  et 
excolere  coepit." — Vita  S.  Ansberti,  c.  i.  We  shall  afterwards  speak  of  this 
Ansbert,  also  a  monk  at  Fontenelle,  after  having  been  one  of  the  principal 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  323 

His  task  was  not  always  without  danger ;  one  day  when 
he  was  labouring  with  his  pious  legion,  the  keeper  of  the 
royal  forest,  a  portion  of  which  had  been  given  to  Vandre- 
gisil,  furious  to  see  his  charge  thus  lessened,  approached  the 
abbot  to  strike  him  with  his  lance;  but,  as  happened  so 
often,  just  as  he  was  about  to  strike,  his  arm  became  para- 
lysed, the  weapon  fell  from  his  hands,  and  he  remained  as 
if  possessed,  till  the  prayer  of  the  saint  whom  he  would 
have  slain  restored  his  faculties/  The  royal  foresters  were 
naturally  disposed  to  appropriate  into  personal  estates  the 
forests  committed  to  their  care,  and  which  the  kings  only 
used  occasionally  for  hunting.  This  was  the  cause  of  their 
animosity,  which  we  shall  often  have  to  refer  to,  against  the 
strangers  endowed  with  such  gifts  who  came  to  establish 
themselves  there. 

Vandregisil,  however,  did  not  confine  his  activity  to  the 
foundation  and  government  of  his  abbey.  Fontenelle  was 
situated  in  the  country  of  Caux,  that  is,  the  land  of  the 
Caletes,  who  had  been  distinguished  by  the  energy  of  their  re- 
sistance to  CfBsar,  and  who  had  figured  among  the  other  tribes 
of  Belgian  Gaul  in  the  last  struggle  against  the  proconsul, 
even  after  the  fall  of  Alise  and  the  heroic  Vercingetorix.^ 
The  land  of  Caux  was  then  Christian  only  in  name;  the 
inhabitants  had  fallen  back  into  complete  and  brutal  bar- 
barism. The  abbot  of  Fontenelle  went  throughout  the 
whole  country,  preached  the  Gospel  everywhere,  procured 
the  destruction  of  the  idols  whom  the  peasants  persisted  in 

officials  at  the  court  of  Dagoberfc.  Wandregisil  built  a  fifth  church  at  the 
top  of  this  vineyard,  dedicated  to  St.  Saturnin,  which  was  rebuilt  about 
1030,  and  is  considered  the  most  ancient  edifice  in  the  diocese  of  Rouen, 
and  one  of  the  most  curious  in  Normandy. 

^  The  chapel  of  Notre  Dame  de  Caillouville,  built  upon  the  spot  where 
this  incident  happened,  was  still  existing  in  the  time  of  Mabillon.  It  was 
demolished  after  the  Revolution  by  a  man  named  Lherondel.  A  fountain, 
visited  every  year  by  many  pilgrims,  is  still  to  be  seen  there.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  basin,  cut  in  the  stone,  is  a  rude  representation  of  St 
Radegund. 

2  De  BeUo  GaUico,  book  viii.  c.  7.     Orosius,  lib.  vi.  c.  7  and  11. 


324  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

worshipping,  and  transformed  the  land  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  country  people  never  met  a  priest  or  monk  without 
throwing  themselves  at  his  feet  as  before  an  image  of  Christ.^ 
Vandregisil,  when  he  died,  left  three  hundred  monks  in 
his  monastery,  and  a  memory  so  popular  that,  four  centuries 
after  his  death,  his  name  was  still  celebrated  by  a  grateful 
posterity  in  rhymes  translated  from  the  Latin  into  the 
vulgar  tongue.^  In  one  of  the  chapels  of  that  abbey  which 
attracted  and  charmed  all  travellers  on  the  Seine  from  Rouen 
to  the  sea,  rude  seats  were  shown  which  had  been  used  by 
the  founder  and  his  two  most  intimate  friends,  the  Arch- 
bishop Ouen,  and  Philibert,  the  founder  of  Jumieges,  when 

1  "  Illuc  nobilium  liberi  undique  concurrere  .  .  .  ita  ut  nobilium  multi- 
tudo  virorum  comniunia  cum  omnibus  possideret  omnia.  ...  Si  quispiam 
proprium  aliquid  usurpare  tentaret  ...  a  cjeterorum  remotus  concilio  .  .  . 
plectebatur.  .  .  .  Sed  et  omnes  Caletorum  populi  ita  brutis  ac  belluis 
similes  ante  adventum  illius  in  hac  regione  fuerant,  ut  pra:;ter  Christianaj 
fidei  nomen  virtus  religionis  pene  abolita  in  illis  locis  fuerat.  .  .  .  Ut  qui 
antea  arripiebant  aliena  postea  largirentur  propria." — Vita  Secunda,  c. 
15-22. 

2  "  Hie  ille  est  Tetbaldus  Vernonensis,  qui  multorum  gesta  sanctorum, 
sed  et  S.  Wandregisili  a  sua  latinitate  transtulit  atque  in  communem 
linguse  usum  satis  facunde  retulit,  ac  sic  ad  quamdam  tinnuli  rhythmi 
similitudinem  urbanas  ex  illis  .cantilenas  edidit."— Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  s£ec. 
iii.  p.  I,  p.  361.  In  VitaS.  Vulfram.  The  abbey  of  Fontenelle,  near  Caude- 
bec,  took,  like  many  others,  the  name  of  its  founder,  and  was  distin- 
guished, during  the  eighth  century,  by  a  long  line  of  saints.  Up  to  1790 
it  formed,  with  JumitSges,  one  of  the  finest  ornaments  of  the  banks  of  the 
Seine.  Now  nothing  remains  of  the  four  churches  built  by  Vandregisil, 
the  principal  of  which,  the  abbey  church,  was  magnificently  rebuilt  in  the 
thirteenth  century.  In  1828  their  ruins  were  still  beautiful  and  admired  : 
since  then  the  owner,  M.  Cyprien  Lenoir,  has  destroyed  them  by  sapping ;  the 
stones  of  the  mullions  and  pillars  have  been  used  to  pave  the  neighbouring 
roads.  An  Englishman,  more  intelligent  than  the  barbarous  successors  of 
the  contemporaries  of  Dagobert,  bought  considerable  fragments  of  these 
precious  ruins,  and  conveyed  them  across  the  Channel  to  set  them  up  in 
his  park.  The  monastery,  rebuilt  and  reformed  under  Louis  XIV.  by  the 
Congregation  of  St.  Maur,  is  still  in  existence,  transformed  into  a  spinning- 
mill.  The  cloister,  a  monument  of  the  fourteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
is  admired.  See  the  Essai  sur  St.  Vandrille,  by  M.  Langlois,  and  the  learned 
and  useful  work,  entitled  Les  Eglises  dc  V Arrondissement  d'Yvetot,  by  M. 
I'Abb^  Cochet,  1854,  t.  i.  pp.  49-73. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  325 

they  came  to  Fontenelle,  where  these  three  converted  nobles 
met  in  long  and  pleasant  conferences,  in  which  their  expec- 
tations of  heavenly  joy,  and  terrors  of  divine  judgment,  were 
mingled  with  a  noble  solicitude  for  the  triumph  of  justice 
and  peace  in  the  country  of  the  Franks.^ 

Nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  remains  of  the  architectural 
splendours  of  St.  Vandrille ;  but  the  ruined  towers  of  Ju- 
mieges  still  testify  to  the  few  travellers  upon  the  Seine  the 
magnificence  of  another  abbey,  still  more  celebrated,  which 
was  long  the  noblest  ornament  of  that  portion  of  Neustria 
to  which  the  Normans  have  given  their  name,  and  which, 
like  Fontenelle,  is  connected  by  means  of  its  founder,  St. 
Philibert,  with  the  work  and  lineage  of  Columbanus.  The 
lives  of  these  two  founders  show  many  analogies.  Like 
Wandregisil,  the  young  Philibert  was  recommended  by  his 
father  to  King  Dagobert,  and  at  twenty  left  the  court  and 
military  life  for  the  cloister.  Like  him,  and  still  more 
directly  than  he,  he  was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Colum- 
banus, having  been  a  monk  and  abbot  in  the  monastery  of 
Rebais,  which  had  its  immediate  origin  from  Luxeuil,  before 
he  went  on  pilgrimage  to  Luxeuil  itself,  to  Bobbio,  and  the 
other  communities  which  followed  the  Irish  rule.  He  also 
had  ties  of  friendship  from  his  youth  with  St.  Ouen,  the 
powerful  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  and  it  was  in  the  same 
diocese  that  he  finally  established  himself,  to  build  the  great 
abbey  which,  like  Fontenelle,  was  endowed  by  the  gifts  of 
Clovis  II.  and  the  holy  queen  Bathilde. 

Philibert  often  visited  his  neighbour  Wandregisil ;  he 
imitated  him  in  working  with  his  monks  at  the  clearing  of 
the  conceded  lands,  which  became  fields  and  meadows  of 
wonderful  fertility,  and  like  him  he  had  to  brave  the  ani- 

1  "  Monstrabantur  .  .  .  grabata  et  sedes  ubi  .  .  .  considere  soliti  essent 
.  .  .  quorum  oratio  non  alia  erat  quam  .  .  .  de  paradisi  deliciis  et  gehennae 
suppliciis  .  .  .  de  justitia  quoque  .  .  .  ac  patrice  salute  .  .  .  et  pace  omni- 
bus pr^dicanda."— Fito,  c.  17.  Another  proof  of  the  ignorance  of  those 
modern  authors  who  have  assumed  the  word  and  idea  of  country  to  be 
unknown  in  the  middle  ages. 


326  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

mosity  of  the  royal  foresters,  who  stole  his  work-horses.  Like 
Fontenelle,  Jumieges  was  built  upon  the  site  of  an  ancient 
Gallo-Eoman  castle,  which  was  thus  replaced  by  what  con- 
temporaries called  "  the  noble  castle  of  God."  But  situated 
upon  the  same  banks  of  the  Seine,  and  on  a  peninsula 
formed  by  the  winding  of  the  river,  the  abbey  of  Philibert 
was  more  accessible  by  water,  and  soon  became  a  great 
centre  of  commerce.  British  and  Irish  sailors  brought 
materials  for  clothing  and  shoes  to  the  Religious  there  in 
exchange  for  their  corn  and  cattle.  Philibert  required  that, 
in  all  these  barters  with  neighbours  or  strangers,  the  bargain 
should  be  more  profitable  to  the  purchasers  than  if  they 
were  dealing  with  laymen.  The  monks  had  great  success 
in  the  fishing  of  some  species  of  porpoise  {cetacea)  which 
ascended  the  Seine,  and  which  produced  oil  to  lighten  their 
vigils.  They  also  fitted  out  vessels  in  which  they  sailed  to 
great  distances  to  redeem  slaves  and  captives. 

Doubtless  a  portion  of  these  captives  contributed  to 
increase  the  number  of  the  monks  of  Jumieges,  which  rose 
to  nine  hundred,  without  reckoning  the  fifteen  hundred 
servants  who  filled  the  office  of  lay-brothers.  They  were 
under  a  rule  composed  by  Philibert  after  attentive  observa- 
tion of  numerous  monasteries  of  France,  Italy,  and  Burgundy, 
which  he  had  visited  for  that  end.  This  was  adopted  by 
most  of  the  communities  which  were  then  formed  in  Neustria 
in  imitation  of  his,  and  of  which  Jumieges  became  the  centre 
where  abbots  and  monks  vied  in  seeking  education  or  re- 
vival. It  combined  the  instructions  of  the  fathers  of  the 
desert,  such  as  St.  Basil  and  St.  Macarius,  with  the  precepts 
of  the  two  great  monastic  patriarchs  of  the  West,  Benedict 
and  Columbanus.  But  the  influence  of  Columbanus  natu- 
rally predominated,  in  consequence  of  the  early  monastic 
education  of  Philibert  and  his  long  residence  at  Luxeuil 
and  Bobbio.  In  the  great  church  which  he  built  for  his 
abbey,  the  magnificence  of  which,  attested  by  a  contem- 
porary narrative,  amazes  us,  he  raised  an  altar  in  honour  of 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  327 

Columbanus,  and  of  him  alone  among  all  the  saints  whose 
rules  he  had  studied  and  practised.^ 

Philibert  survived  his  friend,  neighbour,  and  emulator, 
Wandregisil,  nearly  twenty  years.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Aichadre,  a  noble  of  Poitou,  to  whom  belongs  a  legend 
written  two  centuries  later,  but  which  must  be  repeated 
here  as  a  proof  of  the  great  numbers  and  angelical  piety  of 
the  monks  of  the  great  Neustrian  abbey.  According  to 
this  tale,  Aichadre,  who  governed  the  nine  hundred  monks 
of  whom  we  have  before  spoken,  feeling  himself  on  the  eve 
of  death,  and  fearing  that  after  his  death  his  monks  might 
fall  into  the  snares  of  sin,  prayed  the  Lord  to  provide  against 
it.  The  following  night  he  saw  an  angel  going  round  the 
dormitory  of  the  Religious  :  this  angel  touched  four  hundred 
and  fifty  of  them  with  the  rod  he  held,  and  promised  the 
abbot  that  in  four  days  they  should  leave  this  life,  and  that 
when  his  turn  was  come,  they  should  all  come  to  meet  him 
in  heaven.  The  abbot,  having  acquainted  his  brethren, 
prepared  them  for  this  happy  journey.  They  took  the 
viaticum  together,  and  afterwards  held  a  chapter  with  those 
of  the  community  whom  the  angel  had  not  marked.  Each 
of  the  elect  placed  himself  between  two  of  these  last,  and 
all  together  chanted  songs  of  triumph.  The  faces  of  those 
who  were  to  die  soon  began  to  shine,  and,  without  giving 
the  least  sign  of  pain,  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  passed 

^  Vita  S.  Wandregisili,  c.  17  ;  Vita  S.  Philibcrti,  c  I,  5,  6,  7,  8,  14,  15, 
20,  32.  "Cum  pro  fratrum  compendiis  mandaret  exerceri  negotia,  am- 
plius  dare  jubebat  quam  dari  a  stecularibus  consuetude  poscebat.  Et 
propter  hoc  gaudente  vicino  populo  de  labore  justo  sanctum  exuberabat 
commercium." — C.  21.  "Intrans  .  .  .  reliqua  coenobia  sub  norma  S. 
Columbani  degentia,  atque  omnia  monasteria  .  .  .  ut  prudentissima  apis 
quidquid  melioribus  florere  vidit  studiis,  hoc  suis  traxit  exemplis.  Basilii 
sancta  charismata,  Macarii  regulam,  Benedicti  decreta,  Columbani  insti- 
tuta  sanctissima  lectione  frequentabat  assidua.  .  .  .  Multa  monasteria 
per  ejus  exemplum  sunt  constituta  in  Neustria.  Confluebant  ad  eum 
sacerdotes  Dei  .  .  .  et  de  ejus  Regula  sua  ornabant  coenobia." — C.  5,  20. 
Compare  Vit.  S.  Aichadri,  c.  21.  Philibert  founded,  besides  Jumieges,  the 
abbey  of  Noirmoutier,  in  an  island  on  the  coast  of  Poitou,  and  that  of 
Montivillers,  for  women,  in  the  county  of  Caux. 


3  28  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

from  this  life  to  the  other :  the  first  hundred  at  the  hour  of 
tierce,  the  second  at  sexte,  the  third  at  none,  the  fourth  at 
vespers,  and  the  last  at  compline.  Their  obsequies  were 
celebrated  for  eight  days;  and  those  who  survived  them 
wept  that  they  were  not  judged  worthy  to  follow.-^  The 
mind  of  the  ages  of  faith  was  so  formed  that  such  narratives 
increased  the  number  of  religious  vocations,  and  contributed 
to  root  the  great  monastic  foundations  deeply  in  the  heart 
of  the  nations. 

Bishop  Ouen,  whose  influence  and  help  had  endowed  the 
diocese  of  Rouen  with  the  two  powerful  abbeys  of  Fonte- 
nelle  and  Jumieges,  was  connected  with  Columbanus  by  a 
recollection  of  his  earliest  years.  The  great  Irish  monk 
was  everywhere  remarked  by  his  love  for  children,  and  the 
paternal  kindness  he  showed  them.  During  his  exile  and 
journey  from  the  court  of  the  king  of  Neustria  to  that  of 
Austrasia,  he  paused  in  a  chateau  situated  upon  the  Marne, 
which  belonged  to  a  Frank  noble,^  the  father  of  three  sons 
named  Adon,  Radon,  and  Dadon,  two  of  whom  were  still 
under  age.  Their  mother  led  them  to  the  holy  exile  that 
he  might  bless  them ;  this  benediction  brought  them  happi- 
ness and  governed  their  life.      The  whole  three   were,  in 

^  "Occurrent  tibi  qui  prEccesserunt  fratres,  cum  psalmis  suscipientes 
te.  .  .  .  Quarto  igitur  die,  post  missam,  absoluti  omnes  communicabant, 
et  osculantes  se  in  pace,  ibant  cum  patre  ad  domum  capituli :  et  prse- 
posuit  singulis  custodes  psallentes.  Et  resplendebant  facies  morientium, 
quasi  resurgentium.  Quidam  moriebantur  ad  tertiam  .  .  .  et  reliqui 
circa  completorium,  qui  omnes  erant  Christo  incorporati.  .  .  .  Rema- 
nentes  etiam  flebant  quia  relinquebantur :  f  uit  tamen  luctus  Isetificans 
propter  spem  gloriaj." — Act.  SS.  Bolland.,  t.  v.  Septembr.,  p.  loi. 
"  Coepit  jam  beata  plebs  tanquam  in  bora  diei  tertia  ad  finem  properare 
dispositum,  nullus  parcens  alteri,  sed  sicut  senex  ita  et  mediocris,  et  ut 
juvenis  ita  et  puerulus.  .  .  .  Occubuit  autem  medietas  hujus  sancta; 
familiae." — Mabillon,  Acta  SS.  0.  B.,  secc.  ii.  t.  ii.  p.  930.  According 
to  another  version,  the  445  monks  designated  died  in  three  days.  This 
legend  recalls  that  of  St.  Gwennole,  founder  of  the  abbey  of  Landevenec, 
in  Brittany,  which  has  been  versified  by  a  Breton  poet  of  our  days,  M. 
Briseux,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15  Octobre  1857,  p.  886. 

2  He  was  named  Autharis,  and  his  castle  Eussy. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  329 

the  first  place,  like  all  the  young  Frank  nobility,  sent  to 
the  court  of  the  king  Clotaire  II.,  and  to  that  of  his  son 
Dagobert,  who  for  some  time  reigned  alone  over  the  three 
Frank  kingdoms.  The  eldest  of  the  three  brothers,  Adon, 
was  the  first  to  break  with  the  grandeurs  and  pleasures  of 
secular  life  ;  he  founded  upon  the  soil  of  his  own  patrimony, 
and  upon  a  height  which  overlooked  the  Marne,  the  monas- 
tery of  Jouarre,  which  he  put  under  the  rule  of  Columbanus, 
and  where  he  himself  became  a  monk.  Almost  immediately 
after  there  was  formed  by  the  side  of  this  first  foundation 
another  community  of  virgins,  destined  to  become  much 
more  illustrious,  and  associated,  a  thousand  years  later,  with 
the  immortal  memory  of  Bossuet. 

Radon,  the  second  of  the  brothers,  who  had  become  the 
treasurer  of  Dagobert,  imitated  the  elder,  and  consecrated 
his  portion  of  the  paternal  inheritance  to  the  foundation  of 
another  monastery,  also  upon  the  Marne,  and  which  was 
called  after  himself  Reuil  (Eadolium).  There  now  remained 
only  the  third,  Dadon,  who  afterwards  took  the  name  of 
Ouen  (Audomus),  and  who,  having  become  the  dearest 
among  all  the  leudes  of  Dagobert  and  his  principal  con- 
fidant, received  from  him  the  oflSce  of  referendary,  or  keeper 
of  the  seal  by  which,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Frank 
kings,  all  the  edicts  and  acts  of  public  authority  were  sealed. 
He,  notwithstanding,  followed  the  example  of  his  brothers, 
and  the  inspiration  which  the  blessing  of  Columbanus  had 
left  in  their  young  hearts.^  He  sought  among  the  forests 
which  then  covered  La  Brie  a  suitable  site  for  the  founda- 
tion which  he  desired  to  form  and  endow.  He  found  it  at 
last  near  a  torrent  called  Eebais,  a  little  to  the  south  of  the 
positions  chosen  by  his  brothers  ;  it  was  a  glade  which  was 

^  Jonas,  Vita  S.  Columhani,  c.  50.  "Viri  inclyti,  optimates  aulas." — S. 
AUDOEN,  Vita  S.  Elirjii,  i.  c.  8.  "  Filii  illustris  viri  Autharii,  ex  prasclara 
Francorum  progenie.  ...  In  proprio  solo.  ...  In  patrimonio  proprio. 
...  In  quo  etiam  monastica  secundum  B.  Columbani  Instituta  una  cum 
caterva  .  .  .  militavit.  Vestans  ejus  annulum  quo  signabantur  publics 
totius  regni  potiora  signa  vel  edicta." — Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  14. 


330  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

revealed  to  him  for  three  successive  nights  by  a  resplendent 
cloud  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  He  built  a  monastery  there 
which  has  retained  the  name  of  the  torrent,  although  Ouen 
had  at  first  given  it  that  of  Jerusalem,  as  a  symbol  of  the 
fraternal  peace  and  contemplative  life  which  he  had  intended 
should  reign  there.^  He  also  desired,  like  his  brothers,  to 
end  his  life  in  that  retreat;  but  neither  the  king  nor  the 
other  leudes  would  consent  to  it,  and  he  had  to  remain  for 
some  time  longer  at  the  Merovingian  court,  until  he  was 
elected  bishop  (at  the  same  time  as  his  friend  Eloysius)  by 
the  unanimous  consent  of  the  clergy  and  people. 

He  exercised  a  sort  of  sovereignty  at  once  spiritual  and 
temporal  throughout  the  whole  province  of  Rouen  ;  for  he 
had  obtained  from  the  king  of  Neustria  a  privilege  by  the 
terms  of  which  neither  bishop,  abbot,  count,  nor  any  other 
judge  could  be  established  there  without  his  consent.^ 
During  the  forty-three  years  of  his  rule,  he  changed  the 
whole  aspect  of  his  diocese,  covering  it  with  monastic 
foundations,  one  of  which,  situated  at  Rouen  itself,  has 
retained  his  name,  consecrated  to  art  and  history  by  that 
wonderful  basilica  which  is  still  the  most  popular  monu- 
ment of  Normandy. 

But  Ouen  had  not  left  his  beloved  foundation  of  Rebais 
without  a  head  worthy  of  presiding  over  its  future  progress. 

1  "  Desiderans  illic  haberi  collegium  pacis  et  unanima;  fraternitatis  con- 
templationem.  .  .  .  Cum  Rex  et  cuncti  proceres  Francorum  illi  nollent 
adquiescere." — Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  i8,  19.  Any  ancient'map  of  Champagne 
will  show  that  the  three  monasteries  of  Jouarre,  Eeuil  (reduced  to  the 
rank  of  a  priory  under  Cluny),  and  Rebais  formed  a  sort  of  triangle  be- 
tween the  Marne  and  the  Morin.  M.  de  Chaumont  has  recently  found  in 
the  subterranean  church  of  Jouarre,  which  still  exists,  the  inscription 
already  published  by  Mabillon  in  honour  of  the  first  abbess  of  that  cele- 
brated community  :  "  Hie  membra  post  ultima  teguntur  |  fata  sepulcro 
beatse  |  Theodiecheldis  intemeratEe  virginis  genere  nobilis  meritis  fulgens 
I  strenua  moribus  flagrans  in  dogmate  almo  |  Cenobii  hujus  mater  sacratas 
Deo  virgines  |  sumentes  oleum  cum  lampadibus  prudentes  invitat  |  sponso 
filias  occurrere  X°.  Exultat  Paradisi  in  gloria." — Bulletin  Monumental,  t, 
ix.  p.  186. 

2  Lecointe,  Ann,  Eccles.  ad  ann.  681  ;  H.  Maetin,  ii.  163. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  33 1 

He  desired  to  choose  a  ruler  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  that 
great  saint  whose  memory  remained  always  so  dear  to  him.-^ 
He  brought  from  Luxeuil  the  monk  who  seemed  to  him  the 
best  personification  of  the  institute  of  Columbanus.  It  was 
Agilus,  the  son  of  that  noble  who  had  obtained  the  gift  of 
Luxeuil  for  the  Irish  missionary  from  the  Burgundian  king. 
Like  Ouen  and  his  brothers,  Agilus  had  been  brought  as  a 
child  to  receive  the  blessing  of  Columbanus  in  his  father's 
house,  and  was  afterwards  entrusted  to  the  saint  to  be 
educated  in  the  monastery,  where  he  had  adopted  monastic 
life,  and  gained  the  affection  and  confidence  of  the  whole 
community.^  Associated  with  the  mission  of  the  successor 
of  Columbanus  among  the  pagan  Warasques  and  Bava- 
rians, his  fame  was  great  in  all  the  countries  under  Frank 
dominion,  and  wherever  he  had  been,  at  Metz,  at  Langres, 
and  Besanpon,  he  had  excited  universal  admiration  by  his 
eloquence  and  the  miraculous  cures  which  were  owing  to 
his  prayers.  All  these  cities  desired  him  for  their  bishop  ; 
but  the  monks  of  Luxeuil,  above  all,  saw  in  him  their  future 
abbot.  To  bring  him  forth  from  that  cloister  which  was 
his  true  mother-country,  a  written  order  of  Dagobert  was 
necessary,  who  made  him  first  go  to  Compiegne,  where  he 
received  him  pompously  in  the  midst  of  his  court,  and  be- 
stowed on  him,  with  the  consent  of  the  bishops  and  leudes 
assembled  at  the  palace,  the  government  of  the  new  abbey. 
Twelve  monks  from  Luxeuil  entered  with  him,  and  were 
soon  joined  by  a  great  number  of  nobles,  from  the  royal 
retinue  and  the  surrounding  country,  to  such  an  extent  that 
Agilus  had  as  many  as  eighty  disciples,  among  whom  was 
the  young  Philibert,  who  was  to  bear  the  traditions  of 
Columbanus  from  Eebais  to  Jumieges.  All  devoted  them- 
selves to    the    labours    of    cultivation    and    the    duties    of 


1  "  Qui  S.  Columbanum  prsestantissime  dilexerat." —  Vita  S.  Agili,  c.  24. 

2  See  page  263  for  an  account  of  the  father  of  Agilus,  and  the  mission 
with  which  he  was  charged  to  King  Thierry,  after  the  first  expulsion  of 
Columbanus. 


3  32  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

hospitality  with  that  zeal  which  made  the  new  monasteries  so 
many  agricultural  colonies  and  assured  shelters  for  travellers 
in  these  vast  provinces  of  Gaul,  which  were  thus  finally 
raised  from  the  double  ruin  into  which  Roman  oppression 
and  Barbarian  invasion  had  thrown  them. 

The  Irish  who  then  flocked  into  Gaul  on  the  steps  of 
Columbanus,  and  who  traversed  it  to  carry  the  tribute  of 
their  ardent  devotion  to  Eome,  willingly  halted  at  the  door 
of  the  monastery  where  they  were  sure  of  meeting  a  pupil 
or  admirer  of  their  great  countryman ;  and  Agilus  refreshed 
them  plentifully  with  the  good  wine  of  the  banks  of  Marne, 
till  he  sometimes  almost  exhausted  the  provisions  of  the 
monastery.  But  a  pleasant  narrative  shows  us  his  watchful 
charity  in  a  still  more  attractive  light.  It  was  evening,  a 
winter  evening ;  the  abbot,  after  having  passed  the  day  in 
receiving  guests  of  an  elevated  rank,  was  going  over  the 
various  offices  of  the  monastery  ;  when  he  reached  the  xenodo- 
chiu7n,  that  is,  the  almonry  or  hospice,  specially  destined  for 
the  reception  of  the  poor,  he  heard  outside  a  feeble  and 
plaintive  voice,  as  of  a  man  who  wept.  Through  the  wicket 
of  the  door,  and  by  the  half  light,  he  saw  a  poor  man, 
covered  with  sores,  lying  upon  the  ground  and  asking 
admittance.  Turning  immediately  to  the  monk  who  ac- 
companied him,  he  cried,  "  See  how  we  have  neglected  our 
first  duty  for  these  other  cares.  Make  haste  and  have  some- 
thing prepared  for  him  to  eat."  Then,  as  he  had  with  him  all 
the  keys  of  the  house,  which  the  porter  took  to  him  every 
evening  after  the  stroke  of  compline,  he  opened  the  postern 
of  the  great  door.  "  Come,  my  brother,"  he  said,  "  we  will 
do  all  for  thee  that  thou  needest."  The  sufferings  of  the  leper 
prevented  him  from  walking,  and  the  abbot  himself  carried 
him  in  upon  his  shoulders  and  placed  him  upon  a  seat  by  the 
side  of  the  fire.  Then  he  hastened  to  seek  water  and  linen 
to  wash  his  hands  ;  but  when  he  returned  the  poor  man  had 
disappeared,  leaving  behind  him  a  delicious  perfume  which 
filled  the  whole    house,  as   if  all  the  spices   of  the   East 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  333 

or    all    the   flowers    of    spring    had    distilled    their    odours 
there.  ^ 

These  sweet  expansions  of  charity  were  allied,  under  the 
influence  of  the  Rule  of  Columbanus,  to  the  most  mascu- 
line virtues,  among  the  women  as  well  as  among  the  men. 
During  that  same  journey  from  Neustria  to  Austrasia,  the 
illustrious  exile,  before  he  reached  the  house  of  the  father  of 
St.  Ouen,  had  visited  another  family  connected  with  theirs, 
which  dwelt  near  Meaux,  and  the  head  of  which  was  a 
powerful  noble  called  Agneric,  whose  son  Cagnoald  had  been 
a  monk  at  Luxeuil  from  his  childhood,  and  had  accompanied 
the  holy  abbot  in  his  exile.  Agneric  was  invested  with  that 
dignity  which  has  been  translated  by  the  title  of  companion 
of  the  king  ;  and  this  king  was  Theodebert,  to  whose  court 
Columbanus  was  bound.  He  received  the  glorious  outlaw 
with  transports  of  joy,  and  desired  to  be  his  guide  for  the 
rest  of  the  journey.  But,  before  leaving,  he  begged  Colum- 
banus to  bless  all  his  house,  and  presented  to  him  on  that 
occasion  his  little  daughter,  who  is  known  to  us  only  under 
the  name  of  Burgundofara,  which  indicates  at  once  the 
exalted  birth  and  Burgundian  origin  of  her  family,^  as  it 

^  "  Per  edictum  Regis.  .  .  ,  Fultus  nitore  procerum.  .  .  .  Per  consultum 
Episcoporum  et  nostrorum  optimatum.  .  .  .  Multi  ex  primoribus  palatii 
atque  proceribus  patrias  .  .  .  peroptabant  sub  illius  regimine  monachicam 
ducere  vitam.  .  .  .  Veniens  plebs  ex  Hibernia  .  .  .  ob  B.  Agili  famam 
laudabilem  quern  isdem  Columbanus  .  .  .  nutriverat.  .  .  .  Vini  copiam 
...  in  magno  vase  imperat  abbas  totum  fratribus  ac  plebi  propinari.  .  .  . 
Audivit  .  .  .  velut  plangentis  hominis  exilem  vocem.  .  .  .  Erat  enim  adhuc 
quiddam  diei.  .  .  .  Aperta  fenestra  qu£e  portte  inhserebat.  .  .  .  Ecce  quo- 
modo  .  .  .  tanta  negleximus  :  perge  velocius  et  para  ei  refectionem.  .  .  . 
Veni,  f rater.  .  .  .  Hiems  quippe  erat.  .  .  .  Tanta  fragrantia  jocundi  odoris 
domum  replevit,  velut  si.  .  .  ." — Vita  S.  Agili  auctorc  suhcequali,  c.  17,  20, 
23,  24,  ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  308. 

2  "  Burgundise  Farones  vero,  tarn  episcopi  quam  cpeteri  leudes." — Fre- 
DEGAIRB,  c.  41,  ap.  D.  Bouquet,  ii.  429.  In  chapter  44  he  makes  it  a 
single  word,  Burgundcefarones,  speaking  of  the  Burgundian  nobles  met 
at  the  Council  of  Bonneuil.  Faron  comes,  according  to  Dom  Bouquet, 
from  the  word  fara,  which  means  generation  or  line,  in  La  Loi  dcs  Lombards, 
V.  iii.  tit.  xiv.    Compare  Paul  the  Deacon,  lib.  ii.  c.  9.   From  this  evidently 


334  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

were,  the  nolle  haroncss  of  Burgundy.  The  saint  gave  her 
his  blessing,  but  at  the  same  time  dedicated  her  to  the 
Lord.  History  says  nothing  about  the  consent  of  her 
parents,  but  the  noble  young  girl  herself,  when  she  had 
reached  a  marriageable  age,  considered  herself  bound  by  that 
engagement,  and  resolutely  opposed  the  marriage  which  her 
brother  wished  her  to  contract.  She  became  ill,  and  was  at 
the  point  of  death.  In  the  meantime  the  abbot  Eustace, 
the  successor  of  Columbanus  at  Luxeuil,  returning  from 
Italy  to  give  an  account  to  Clotaire  II.  of  the  mission  to 
his  spiritual  father  with  which  the  king  had  charged  him, 
passed  by  the  villa  of  Agneric.  At  sight  of  the  dying  girl, 
he  reproached  her  father  with  having  violated  the  engage- 
ment taken  towards  God  by  the  saint  whose  blessing  he 
had  asked.  Agneric  promised  to  leave  his  daughter  to  God 
if  she  recovered.  Eustace  procured  that  recovery.  But 
scarcely  had  he  departed  for  Soissons,  when  the  father,  un- 
faithful to  his  promise,  attempted  again  to  constrain  his 
daughter  to  a  marriage  which  she  resisted.  She  then 
escaped  and  took  refuge  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter.  Her 
father's  retainers  followed  her  there,  with  orders  to  bring 
her  away  from  the  sanctuary,  and  threaten  her  with  death. 
"  Do  you  believe,  then,"  she  said  to  them,  "  that  I  fear 
death  ?  make  the  trial  upon  the  pavement  of  this  church. 
Ah!  how  happy  should  I  be  to  give  my  life  in  so  just  a 
cause  to  Him  who  has  given  His  life  for  me  !  "  ^      She  held 

proceeds  the  word  haron,  so  long  used  to  designate  the  leaders  of  the  aris- 
tocracy in  all  the  countries  occupied  by  the  Germanic  tribes. 

1  "Vir  nobilis  Hagnericus,  Theodeberti  conviva  .  .  .  et  consiliis  ejus 
grata.  .  .  .  Quae  infra  infantiles  annos  benedicens  earn  Domino  vovit."— 
Jonas,  Vita  S.  Columhani,  c.  50.  "  Accedens  ad  stratum  puellse,  sciscitatur 
si  suaj  f  uerit  adsentationis  quod  contra  B.  Columbani  interdictum  post  vota 
coelestia  rursus  iteravit  terrena.  .  .  .  Mortem  me  formidare  putatis  ?  In 
hoc  ecclesije  pavimento  probate.  .  .  .  Quem  (Agrestinum)  Christi  virgo 
non  femineo  more,  sed  virili  confodit  responsione." — Ibid.,  Vita  S.  Eustasii, 
c.  I,  2,  14.  The  same  Jonas  wrote,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  abbess  Bur- 
gundofara,  a  series  of  anecdotes  regarding  the  various  nuns  of  the  monastery, 
which  throws  great  light  upon  the  internal  government  of  a  great  abbey  of 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  335 

out  until  the  return  of  abbot  Eustace,  who  finally  delivered 
her  from  her  father,  and  obtained  from  him  a  grant  of  land 
on  which  Burgundofara  might  found  the  monastery  of  Fare- 
moutier,  which  was  called  by  her  name.  Her  example 
drew  as  many  followers,  among  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
the  Frank  nobility,  as  her  cousins  had  gained  of  their  own 
sex,  for  their  monasteries  of  Rebais  and  Jouarre.  This 
corner  of  La  Brie  became  thus  a  sort  of  monastic  province 
dependent  upon  Luxeuil.  Burgundofara  lived  there  forty 
years,  faithfully  observing  the  Rule  of  St.  Columbanus,  and 
maintaining  it  manfully  against  the  perfidious  suggestions 
of  the  false  brother  Agrestin,  who  attempted  to  engage 
her  in  his  revolt  against  Eustace  and  the  traditions  of  their 
common  master.  "  I  will  have  none  of  thy  novelties,"  she 
said  to  him ;  "  and  as  for  those  whose  detractor  thou  art,  I 
know  them,  I  know  their  virtues,  I  have  received  the 
doctrine  of  salvation  from  them,  and  I  know  that  their  in- 
structions have  opened  the  gates  of  heaven  to  many.  Leave 
me  quickly,  and  give  up  thy  foolish  thoughts." 

The  eldest  brother  of  Burgundofara,  Cagnoald,  was,  as  has 
been  said,  a  monk  at  Luxeuil,  and  the  faithful  companion 
of  Columbanus  during  his  mission  among  the  Alamans : 
he  afterwards  became  Bishop  of  Laon.  His  other  brother, 
who,  like  his  sister,  has  only  retained  for  posterity  the  name 
of  his  rank — that  of  Faron,  or  Baron — was  also  a  bishop  at 
Meaux,  the  centre  of  the  family  domains.  But  before  he 
adopted  the  ecclesiastical  condition,  he  had  distinguished 
himself  in  war,  and  taken  a  notable  part  in  the  victorious 
campaign  of  Clotaire  11.  against  the  Saxons.  It  is  known 
how,  according  to  the  ordinarily  received  tradition,  Clotaire 
disgraced  his  victory  by  massacring  all  his  Saxon  prisoners 
who  were  higher  in  stature  than  his  sword.      All  that  Faron 


women  in  the  seventh  century.  (Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  v.  ii.  p.  420.)  He  care- 
fully records  the  origin  of  all  these  nuns  ;  among  them  we  find  one  Saxon, 
probably  come  from  England,  which  had  then  become  Christian,  or  perhaps 
one  of  the  prisoners  of  Clotaire. 


336  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

could  do  was  to  save  from  the  cruelty  of  his  king  the  Saxon 
envoys,  charged  with  an  insolent  mission  to  the  king  of  the 
Franks,  whom  Clotaire  had  ordered  to  be  put  to  death. 
Faron  had  them  baptized,  and  said  to  the  king,  "These 
are  no  longer  Saxons ;  they  are  Christians ;  "  upon  which 
Clotaire  spared  them.  If  one  of  his  successors  upon  the  see 
of  Meaux,  who  two  centuries  later  wrote  his  biography,  may 
be  believed,  the  glory  of  Faron  eclipsed  that  of  Clotaire  him- 
self in  the  popular  songs  which  peasants  and  women  vied 
in  repeating,  as  happened  to  David  in  the  time  of  Saul.^ 
The  generous  Faron  had  again,  according  to  the  same  author, 
to  struggle  with  Clotaire  on  an  occasion  which  should  have 
left  a  lasting  recollection  in  the  grateful  hearts  of  the  poor. 
One  day,  when  the  "  knight  of  God  "  accompanied  the  king 
to  the  chase,  a  poor  woman  came  out  of  the  wood,  and  pur- 
sued the  king  with  her  complaints,  explaining  her  great 
distress  to  him.  Clotaire,  annoyed,  went  off  at  a  gallop. 
Faron,  while  escorting  him,  held  a  language  in  which  we 
shall  see  the  noble  freedom  of  German  manners  employed 
in  the  service  of  charity  and  truth.  "  It  is  not  for  herself 
that  this  poor  woman  entreats  you,  but  for  you.  Her 
wretchedness  weighs  heavily  on  her ;  but  the  responsibility 
of  the  royalty,  which  is  entrusted  to  you,  weighs  still  more 

1  "Ex  qua  victoria  carmen  publicum  juxta  rusticitatem  per  omnium 
pane  volitabat  ora  ita  canentium,  femintcque  chores  inde  plaudendo  com- 
ponebant : 

'De  Clothario  est  canere  Rege  Francorum, 
Qui  ivit  pugnare  in  gentem  Saxonum, 
Quam  graviter  provenisset  missis  Saxonum, 
Si  non  fuisset  inclytus  Faro  de  gente  Burgundionum.' 

"  Et  in  fine  hujus  carminis  : 

'  Quando  veniunt  Missi  Saxonum  in  terram  Francorum, 
Faro  ubi  erat  princeps, 

Instinctu  Dei  transeunt  per  urbem  Meldorum, 
Ne  interficiantur  a  Rege  Francorum.'  " 

— HiLDEGAEll  Meld.  Episcop.,  Vita  S.  Faronis,  c.  72-78.  Compare 
Rettberg,  t.  ii.  p.  394. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  337 

heavily  on  you.  She  trusts  her  concerns  to  you,  as  you 
trust  yours  to  God.  She  asks  little  of  you  compared  to  what 
you  ask  every  day  of  God.  How  can  you  expect  that  He 
will  listen  to  you,  when  you  turn  away  your  ear  from  this  poor 
creature  whom  He  has  committed  to  your  keeping  ?  "  The 
king  answered  :  "  I  am  pursued  by  such  cries  every  day, 
and  in  all  quarters ;  my  ears  are  deafened  by  them  ;  I  am 
disgusted  and  worn  out."  Upon  which  he  plunged  into  the 
wood  and  sounded  his  horn  with  all  his  might,  to  encourage 
the  dogs.  But  some  minutes  after  his  horse  stumbled,  and 
the  king  hurt  his  foot  seriously.  Then  he  perceived  that  he 
had  been  wrong.  The  leude  who  spoke  to  him  with  so  much 
Christian  boldness  was  well  qualified  to  be  a  bishop.  He 
shortly  after  gave  up  his  wife  ^  and  the  world,  and  becoming 
Bishop  of  Meaux,  devoted  his  patrimony  to  found  monas- 
teries for  the  reception  of  those  Anglo-Saxons  who,  recently 
converted,  began  to  appear  among  the  Franks,  and  whose 
daughters  came  in  great  numbers  to  take  the  veil  at  Fare- 
moutier.  He  did  the  same  for  the  Scots  and  Irish,  for 
whom  he  had  a  particular  regard,  and  in  whom  he  doubt- 
less honoured,  by  a  domestic  tradition,  the  memory  of  their 
compatriot  Columbanus." 

To  any  who  desire  to  study  more  closely  the  double  action 
of  the  Irish  emigrants  and  the  colonies  of  Luxeuil  in  that 
portion  of  Frankish  Gaul  which  has  since  been  called  I'lle 
de  France  and  Champagne,  St.  Fiacre,  whom  we  have  already 

1  See  above,  page  302,  in  the  note  upon  the  tonsure,  the  curious  anecdote 
of  this  woman  and  her  hair. 

2  "Miles  Christi  cum  eo  equitans.  .  .  .  Non  hsec  paupercuia  tristi 
dolore  clamat  pro  se,  sed  pro  te.  Quamvis  ilia  angustetur  lacrymabili 
corde,  tibi  angustandum  est  potius  pro  commisso  regimine.  Ilia  in  te 
spem  ponit  humili  prece  pro  se,  et  tu  de  propriis  in  Deo  pro  te.  .  .  . 
Quomodo  enim  Maximus  .  .  .  quando  suse  tibi  commissie  pauperculse  nee 
etiam  curas  attendre.  ...  Ad  hajc  rex  :  Omnium  dierum  accessus  et  sub- 
recessus  tali  meas  soUicitant  aures  nausea  frequenter  diverberatas,  et  ad 
haec  curandum  continue  animus  sopitur  lassatus.  Tunc  cornu  curve  plenis 
buccis  anheliter  latratus  canum  acuit."— HILDEGAHIUS,  c.  81,  82,  ap.  Act 
SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  591. 

VOL.  II.  Y 


338  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

seen  occupied  in  transforming  the  wooded  glades  given  him 
by  the  Bishop  of  Meaux  into  gardens,  and  cultivating  there 
for  the  poor  those  vegetables  which  have  procured  for  him, 
down  to  our  own  day,  the  title  of  patron  of  the  gardeners,^ 
should  be  pointed  out  as  one  of  the  Hibernians  received 
by  St.  Faron.  Not  far  from  him  would  be  found  another 
Irishman,  St.  Fursy,  who  came  to  seek  repose,  as  first  abbot 
of  Lagny-sur-Marne,  from  the  fatigues  of  a  life  worn  out  by 
preaching,  as  well  as  troubled  by  that  famous  vision  of 
heaven  and  hell,  which  appears  with  justice  among  the 
numerous  legends  of  the  middle  ages  which  were  forerunners 
of  the  Divina  Commedia,'^  and  from  which  he  emerged  with 
the  special  mission  of  denouncing,  as  the  principal  causes  of 
the  loss  of  souls,  the  negligence  of  pastors,  and  the  bad  ex- 
ample of  princes.^  Moutier-la-Celle,  at  the  gates  of  Troyes, 
built  upon  a  marshy  island,  more  suitable  for  reptiles  than 
men,  by  the  abbot  Frobert,  who  was  so  simple  and  childish  as 
to  rouse  the  derision  of  his  brethren  at  Luxeuil,  but  who  was 
intelligent  and  generous  enough  to  consecrate  all  his  rich 
patrimony  to  found  the  sanctuary  built  near  his  native  town, 
should  also  be  visited.*  Farther  off,  to  the  east,  we  should 
see  Hautvilliers  ^  and  Montier-en-Der,  both  sprung  from  the 
unwearied  activity  and  fervent  charity  of  Berchaire,  an  Aqui- 
tain  noble,  trained  to  monastic  life  under  Walbert  at  Luxeuil, 
from  whence  he  issued  to  become  the  fellow-labourer  of  the 
metropolitan  of  Rheims,  and  to  gain  for  his  works  the 
generous  and  permanent  assistance  of  the  kings  and  all  the 
high  nobility  of  Austrasia.     He  died,  assassinated  by  a  monk 


1  See  page  231. 

2  OzANAM,  Des  Sources  Poitiques  dc  la  Divine  Comddie,  1845,  P-  46. 

3  "  Per  negligentiam  Doctorum,  per  mala  exempla  pravorum  principum." 
—Act.  SS.  O.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  291. 

4  One  of  the  brethren  having  sent  him  for  compasses,  which  were  re- 
quired for  writing,  he  was  sent  back  with  a  millstone  on  his  shoulders, 
taking  advantage  of  the  double  meaning  of  the  word,  circinus,  which,  in 
monk  Latin,  meant  at  once  compass  and  millstone. —  Vita  S.  Frodoh.,  c.  7. 

5  See  p.  221,  the  legend  of  the  foundation  of  Hautvilliers. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  339 

who  was  his  godson,  and  whose  insubordination  he  had 
repressed.^ 
^  Finally,  upon  the  mountain  which  overlooks  the  episcopal 
city  of  Laon,  celebrated  for  having  up  to  that  time  resisted 
all  the  Barbarians  who  had  successively  besieged  it,  we  should 
see  the  vast  monastery  erected  by  an  illustrious  widow,  St. 
Salaberga,  whose  father  was  lord  of  the  villa  of  Meuse,  situ- 
ated near  the  source  of  the  river  which  bears  that  name,  and 
very  near  Luxeuil.  While  still  young,  but  blind,  she'  had 
owed  the  recovery  of  her  sight  to  Eustace,  the  first  suc- 
cessor of  Columbanus  at  Luxeuil.  She  was  married  the  first 
time  because  of  her  extreme  beauty,  but,  becoming  a  widow 
almost  immediately,  and  desirous  of  becoming  a  nun,  was 
obliged  to  marry  again  to  escape  the  jealous  intervention  of 
Dagobert,  who,  like  all  the  Merovingian  kings,  was  as  slow 
to  consent  to  the  monastic  vocation  of  the  daughters  and 
heiresses  of  his  leudes  as  to  that  of  their  sons,  and  who  in- 
sisted upon  their  speedy  marriage  to  nobles  of  the  same  rank. 
But,  at  a  later  period,  owing  to  the  influence  of  Walbert,  the 
successor  of  Eustace,  she  was  enabled,  at  the  same  time  as 
her  husband,  to  embrace  monastic  life,  and  for  ten  years 
ruled  the  three  hundred  handmaids  of  Christ  who  collected 
under  her  wing,  most  of  whom  came  like  herself  from  the 
noble  race  of  the  Sicambrians,  as  the  hagiographers  of  the 
seventh  century  delight  to  prove,  in  speaking  of  the  male 
and  female  saints  whose  lives  they  relate.^ 

1  "Tanquam  athleta  recentissimus  militise  gymnasium  ccslestis. 
Corporis  quietis  impatiens.  .  .  .  Regibus  .  .  .  ac  regise  dignitatis  proceri- 
bus  tam  gratum  acceptabilemque.  .  .  .  Palatii  optimatis  ita  in  cunctis 
affabilis.  ,  ,  .  Tam  ea  quae  sui  juris  ,  ,  ,  quam  quae  ab  ipsis  Francorum 
primoribus  obtineri  poterant."— Adson,  Vita  S.  Bercharii,  c.  7,  11,  12,  13. 
This  life,  written  by  one  of  St.  Berchaire's  successors  at  Montier-en-Der 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  works  in  the  great  collection  of  Acta  brought 
together  by  DAchery  and  Mabillon,  although  it  has  not  the  weight  of  a 
contemporary  production.  An  excellent  work,  entitled  Les  Moines  du  Der, 
by  M.  I'Abbd  Bouillevaux,  has  been  written  upon  this  abbey.  The  abbatial 
church,  which  is  still  existing,  is  one  of  the  finest  monastic  churches  in 
France. 
^  "Erat  enim  decora  venustaque  vultu.  .  .  .  Metuens  ne  ob  filiam  iram 


340  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

It  would,  however,  be  a  grave  error  to  believe  that  the 
nobility  alone  were   called,  among  the  Franks  and  Gallo- 
Romans,  to  fill  up  the  monastic  ranks,  and  preside  over  the 
new  foundations  which  distinguished  every  year  of  the  Mero- 
vingian period.     Luxeuil  and  its  colonies  furnished  more  than 
one  proof  to  the  contrary.      A  little  shepherd  of  Auvergne, 
named  Walaric,  which  has  been  softened  into  Valery,  roused 
by  the  example  of  the  noble  children  of  the  neighbourhood 
who  went  to  schools,  asked  one  of  their  teachers  to  make  him 
out  an  alphabet,  and  found   means,  as  he  kept  his  father's 
sheep,  to  learn  not  only  his  letters,  but  the  entire  Psalter. 
From  thence  to  the  cloister  the  transition  was  easy.      But 
after  having  lived  in  two  different  monasteries,  he  felt  him- 
self drawn  towards  the  great  abbey  from  which  the  fame  of 
Columbanus  shone  over  all  Gaul.      He  was  received  there, 
and  entrusted  with  the  care  of  the  novices'  garden.     He  suc- 
ceeded so  well  in  driving  away  the  insects  and  worms,  his 
vegetables  were  so  wholesome  and  well-flavoured,  his  flowers 
so  fresh  and  sweet,  that  Columbanus  saw  in  this  a  mark  of 
divine  favour  ;   and  as  the  fervent  gardener  carried  every- 
where with  him  the  perfume  of  these  flowers,  which  followed 
him  even  into  the  hall  where  the  abbot  explained  the  Scrip- 
tures, Columbanus,  delighted,  said  to  him  one  day,  "  It  is 
thou,  my  well-beloved,  who  art  the  true  abbot  and  lord  of 
this  monastery."      After  the  exile  of  the  great  Celt,"  Valery 
aided  the  new  abbot  Eustace  to  defend,  by  means  of  persua- 
sion, the  patrimony  and  buildings  of  the  monastery  against 
the  invasions  of  the  neighbouring  population.     But  soon  the 
missionary  fever  seized  him.      He  obtained  permission  from 
Eustace  to  go  and  preach,  foflowing  the  example  of  their  spiri- 
tual master,  among  the  nations  where  idolatry  still  struggled 
with  Christianity.      He  directed  his  steps  to  the  environs  of 

regis  sEevitiamque  incurreret.  .  .  .  Jam  enim  opinio  ejus  ad  aures  regias 
pervenerat.  .  .  .  Ipse  ex  Sicambrorum  prosapia  spectabili  ortus.  .  .  .  Inter 
cajteras  nobilium  Sicambrorum  iemma.s."—Vita  S.  Sataberga,  auctore  coccvo, 
c.  6,  9,  17- 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  34 1 

Amiens,  upon  the  shores  of  the  Britannic  sea,  in  that  portion 
of  Neustria  where  the  Salian  Franks  had  chiefly  established 
themselves.     Guided  by  zeal  and  charity,  he  penetrated  every- 
where, even  to  the  mdls,  or  judicial  assizes,  held,  according 
to  the  custom  of  the  Germans,  by  the  count  of  the  district. 
According  to  the  unfailing  habit  of  the  monks  and  abbots 
of  that  time,  he  appeared  there  to  endeavour  to  save  the 
unfortunate,   who  were   condemned,   from    execution.      The 
king  of  Neustria,  Clotaire  II.,  always  favourable  to  those 
who  came  from  Luxeuil,  permitted  him  to  establish  himself 
at  Leuconaus,  a  place  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the  Somme, 
where  the  high  cliffs,  bathed  by  the  sea,  seemed  to  the  monks 
collected  around  him  to  be  immense  edifices,  whose  summits 
reached  the  sky.      He  made  it  a  sort  of  maritime  Luxeuil. 
He  went  out  unceasingly  to   sow  his  missionary  discourses, 
which  exposed  him  to  a  thousand  insults  and  dangers.     Some- 
times the  idolaters,  seeing  the  fall  of  their  sacred  oaks,  threw 
themselves  upon  him  with  their  axes  and  sticks,  then  stopped, 
disarmed    by   his   calm   intrepidity  !      Sometimes    even  the 
judges  and  priests  of  the  country  made  him  pay  for  their 
hospitality  by  rude  and  obscene  jokes.      To  escape  from  their 
impure  talk,  he  had  to  leave  their  roof  and  fireside.      "  I 
wished  to  warm  my  frame  a  little  by  your  fire,  because  of 
the  great  cold,"  he  said  ;  "  but  your  odious  conversation  forces 
me,  still  frozen,  out  of  your  house."      He  was,  however,  of 
extreme  gentleness,  and  softened  the  observance  of  the  rule, 
so  far  as  concerned    penances,  with  an    indulgence   which 
scarcely  consisted  with  Celtic  tradition.      But  his   unpopu- 
larity lasted  even  after  his  death  among  a  portion  of  the 
people  whom   he   had  undertaken  to   convert,  as  is  proved 
by  a  little  dialogue  recorded  by  his  historian.      On  the  spot 
where  he  had  cut  down  a  tree  venerated  by  the  idolaters,  at 
Aoust  or  Ault,  upon  the  road  to  Eu,  the  Christian  peasants 
raised  an  oratory  consecrated  to  his  memory  ;  but  the  women 
of  the  old  Frank  races,  passing  before  that  modest  sanctuary, 
still  testified  their  repugnance  and  scorn  for  the  monastic 


342  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

apostle.  "  Dear  mother,"  said  a  daughter  to  her  mother, 
"  would  these  people  have  us  to  venerate  the  man  whom  we 
used  to  see  going  about  the  country  mounted  on  an  ass,  and 
miserably  clad  ?  "  "  Yes,"  answered  the  mother  ;  "  it  is  so  ; 
these  peasants  erect  a  temple  in  honour  of  him  who  did 
among  us  only  vile  and  contemptible  things." 

The  memory  of  Valery,  thus  scorned  by  his  contempo- 
raries, was  nevertheless  to  grow  more  and  more  brilliant 
during  the  course  of  ages ;  and  we  shall  see  him  on  two 
solemn  occasions  receive  the  homage  of  the  great  princes 
who  have  founded  the  two  greatest  monarchies  of  Christen- 
dom, Hugh  Capet  and  William  the  Conqueror.^ 

The  inhabitants  of  Ponthieu  (a  name  which  from  that 
period  was  borne  by  the  country  bordering  the  Somme,  where 
Valery  had  established  himself)  seem  to  have  had  a  decided 

1  "  Oviculas  patris  sui  per  pascua  circumagens.  .  .  .  Depoposcit  ut  sibi 
alphabetum  scriberet.  .  .  .  Cuncta  virentia,  jocunda,  amcena  atque  intacta 
conspiciens.  .  .  .  Odorem  magnai  fragrantiai  et  mirandEe  suavitatis.  .  .  . 
Tu  es  merito  abbas  monasterii  et  senior,  mihi,  diligende.  .  .  .  Ubi  quidam 
comes  .  .  .  juxta  morem  sseculi  concioni  prsesidebat,  quod  rustic!  mallum 
vocant.  .  .  .  Volui  propter  rigorem  frigoris  .  .  .  immo  nunc  exire  non  cale 
factus  a  vobis  compellor.  .  .  .  Pars  quae  super  scopulos  et  ingentia  saxa  ab 
imis  ad  summa  erigitur,  aularum  vel  ^dium  fabricam  in  excelsa  aeris  fas 
tigia  .  .  .  mundo  vel  vicinse  region!  prsebet  spectaculum.  .  .  .  Ilia  qua 
ex  his  prior  esse  videbatur  contemnens.  .  .  .  Filia  cum  indignatione.  .  . 
Dulcissima  genitrix,  numquid  illo  in  loco  habitatores  venerari  conantur 
ilium  quem  ante  bos  annos  asello  insidentem  despicabil!  habitu  cerne 
bamus  ?  Huic  vero,  ut  ais,  filia,  rustic!  volunt  fieri  memoriam  cujus  opera 
apud  nos  vilia  et  contemptu  digna  videbantur." — Vita  S.  Walarici,  c.  i,  7, 
8,  II,  13,  28.  The  abbey  of  Leuconaiis  became  the  town  of  St.  Valery-sur 
Somme,  one  of  the  most  prosperous  ports  of  the  Channel  during  the  middle 
ages.  This  town  is  situated  upon  a  height,  forming  a  sort  of  island  or 
promontory  between  the  Somme  and  the  sea.  Defended  on  all  sides  by 
abrupt  rocks,  this  isle  had  to  be  fortified  to  the  south  by  an  intrenchment, 
the  remains  of  which  are  still  visible,  and  which  form  a  boulevard  covered 
with  grass,  called  the  Chemin  Vert.  Tradition  asserts  this  to  have  been 
the  habitual  walk  of  the  abbot  Valery,  and  that  it  was  his  footsteps  which 
formed  the  path. — Lefils,  Histoire  de  St.  Valery  et  du  Compte  de  Vimeu, 
Abbeville,  1858,  p.  6.  St.  Valery-en-Caux,  now  the  chief  town  of  the  dis- 
trict of  Seine  Inf^rieure,  owes  its  origin  to  the  removal,  by  Richard  Cceur- 
de-Lion,  in  1197,  of  the  relics  of  the  holy  founder  of  Leuconaiis. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  343 

objection  to  monks  of  the  Irish  school.     Two  of  the  first 
companions   of  Columbanus,    arriving   from    Ireland   along 
with    him,   and  coming  to    preach  in  these    regions,   were 
overwhelmed  with  insults  and  ill  usage.      At  the  moment 
when  they  were   about  to  be  violently  expelled  from  the 
place,  a  noble  named  Riquier  came  to  their  assistance,  and 
received  them  into  his  house.      In  return  for  his  hospitality 
they  inspired  him  with  love  for  all  the  Christian  virtues, 
and  even  for  monastic  life ;   and  that  conquest  indemnified 
them  for  their  rebuff.     Riquier  became  a  priest  and  a  monk, 
and  himself  began  to  preach  to  the  populations  who  had 
given  so  bad  a  reception  to  his  Irish  guests.      He  succeeded 
beyond  all  his  expectations,  and  made  himself  heard  not 
only  by  the  poor,  whose  miseries  he  consoled,  but  also  by 
the  rich  and  powerful,  whose  excesses  he  censured  severely. 
The  greatest  nobles  of  the  country  were  favourable  to  him, 
including  even  the  keepers  of  the  royal  forests,  whose  col- 
leagues showed  so  much  hostility  to  the  monastic  apostles 
on  the  banks  of  the  Seine.-^     The  success  of  his  eloquence 
was  also  a  triumph  for  charity ;  he  devoted  the  numerous 
alms  which  were  brought  him  to  redeem  captives,  to  re- 
lieve the  lepers  and  other  unfortunates  who  were  attacked 
by  contagious  and  disgusting  diseases.      After  having  ex- 
tended his  apostolic  labours  as  far  as  the  Britannic  Isles,  he 
returned  to  found  in  his  own  domains  at  Centule,  north  of 
the  Somme,  a  monastery  which  was  afterwards  to  take  his 
own  name,  and  become  one  of  the  most  considerable  monas- 
teries of  the  Carlovingian  period.      In  the  meantime  Dago- 
bert,  who  had  succeeded  his  father  Clotaire  II.  in  Neustria, 
went  to  visit  him  in  his  retreat,  and  invited  him  to  come 
and  take  a  place  at  his  own  table,  among  those  companions 
of  the   king  who   formed,   as   is   well   known,  the    highest 
aristocracy  among  the   Franks.      Riquier  accepted  without 
hesitation  ;  he  took  advantage  of  these  occasions  to  tell  the 
king  the  same  truth  which  the  other  Franks  had  received  so 
1  See  page  327. 


344  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

well  at  his  hands.  He  reproved  him  with  priestly  freedom 
and  authority,  exhorted  him  not  to  pride  himself  on  his 
honour  or  wealth,  and  to  discourage  the  adulation  of  his  cour- 
tiers ;  and  asked  him  how  he  expected  to  stand  at  the  day 
of  judgment  to  answer  for  the  many  thousands  of  men  who 
were  entrusted  to  him,  he  who  would  have  difficulty  enough 
in  rendering  an  account  for  his  own  soul  ?  The  young 
Dagobert  received  his  instructions  so  well  that  he  made  the 
abbot  Riquier  a  special  donation  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
up  the  lights  of  his  church,  in  memory  of  that  invisible 
light  of  Christian  truth  with  which  the  voice  of  the  monk 
had  enlightened  his  soul.^  Despite  their  incessantly  re- 
newed cruelties  and  unchristian  manners,  all  the  Merovin- 
gian kings  at  least  listened  to  the  truth,  and  even  honoured 
those  who  did  them  the  honour  of  speaking  it  to  them 
boldly. 

At  no  great  distance  from    Ponthieu,   and    still    in  the 

1  "A  rusticis  et  popularibus  illins  loci  .  .  .  injuriis  afflict  os  et  opprobriis 
castigates.  .  .  .  Durus  invector  potentibus  .  .  .  istorum  superbiam  severa 
castigatione  reprimens.  .  .  .  Gislemarus,  vir  illustris.  .  .  .  Maurontus, 
habilis  vir,  et  terrarum  vel  silvarum  ad  regem  pertinentium  servator.  .  .  . 
Nee  leprosos  vel  elephantiacos  exhorruit.  .  .  .  Sacerdotali  auctoritate 
libera  voce  castigavit ;  denuntians  ei  ne  in  sseculari  superbiret  potentia 
.  .  .  ne  vanis  adulantium  extoUeretur  rumoribus  .  .  .  et  hoc  magis 
timendo  cogitaret,  quia  potentes  potenter  tormenta  patiuntur  .  .  .  et  qui 
vix  sufficit  pro  se  solo  rationem  reddere  pro  tantis  millibus  populi  sibi 
commissi  .  .  .  qua  castigatione  rex  ut  fuit  sapiens  benigne  suscepta,  con- 
gaudensque  ejus  libera  veritatis  fiducia." — Alcuin.,  Vita  S.  Rkliarii,  c.  2, 
5,  lo,  II,  12.  Compare  Chronic,  Centulense  in  Spicilegio,  vol.  ii.  p.  295,  and 
Mabillon,  Ann.  Benedict.,  book  ii.  c.  60.  A  passage  of  Alcuin  seems  little 
in  harmony  with  what  is  said  in  the  Chronicle  of  Centule  and  by  the  abbot 
Ingelram,  in  his  Vie  Mitrique,  in  the  eleventh  century,  concerning  the 
illustrious  birth  of  Riquier,  but  indicates,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  was, 
like  Valery,  of  rustic  origin  :  "Non  tarn  nobilibus  juxta  sa3culi  parentibus 
ortus  quam  moribus  honestus  .  .  .  ita  ut  in  rustica  vita  quasdam  prsesaga 
futura  sanctitatis  gereret,"  c.  i.  But  this  statement  is  contradicted  by 
other  details,  reported  by  Alcuin  himself.  Centule,  under  the  name  of  St. 
Riquier,  now  a  little  town  of  the  Somme,  has  preserved  its  magnificent 
abbey  church.  Abbeville,  the  ancient  capital  of  Ponthieu  (Abbatis-vUla), 
was  a  small  holding  of  the  abbey  of  Centule. 


,  ST.    COLUMBANUS  345 

country  occupied  by  the  Salian  Franks,  but  higher  up  to- 
wards the  north,  upon  the  confines  of  the  two  Gaulish  tribes 
of  the  Atrebates  and  Morins,  we  find  another  Luxeuil  colony, 
reserved  for  a  more  brilliant  destiny  than  any  of  those  we 
have  yet  mentioned.  Audomar,  since  called  Omer,  was  the 
son  of  a  noble  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Constance,  a  city 
of  Alamannia,  which  was  subject,  as  has  been  already  said, 
to  the  Austrasian  royalty.  Perhaps,  in  passing  through  this 
country,  Columbanus  had  already  instructed  and  won  him  : 
history  gives  us  no  information  on  this  point,  but  proves 
that  a  little  after  the  sojourn  of  the  Irish  apostle  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Lake  of  Constance,  the  young  Omer  presented 
himself  at  Luxeuil,  bringing  his  father  with  him,  a  very  rare 
junction  in  monastic  annals.  Abbot  Eustace  admitted  both 
among  the  number  of  his  monks.  The  father  remained 
there  until  the  end  of  his  life  ;  the  son  left  Luxeuil  twenty 
years  after  to  become  Bishop  of  Therouanne ;  he  had  been 
^  suggested  to  the  choice  of  Dagobert  and  the  Frank  nobles 
by  the  Bishop  of  Laon,  himself  formerly  a  monk  of  Luxeuil, 
The  country  of  the  Morins,  of  which  Therouanne  was  the 
capital,  had  been  in  vain  evangelised  by  martyrs,  from  the 
first  introduction  of  the  faith  into  Gaul :  it  had  fallen  back 
into  idolatry ;  the  few  Christians  who  had  been  trained  there, 
since  the  conquest  and  conversion  of  Clovis,  were  bowed 
down  with  coarse  superstitions.  The  new  bishop  perceived 
that  he  needed  assistance  to  accomplish  such  a  task.  Some 
years  after  his  consecration,  he  begged  abbot  Walbert  of  Lux- 
euil to  send  him  three  of  his  former  brethren,  who  had,  like 
himself,  come  to  Luxeuil  from  the  banks  of  Lake  Constance. 
He  installed  them  in  an  estate  situated  on  the  banks  of  the 
Aa,  and  called  Sithiu,  which  he  had  just  received  as  a  gift 
from  a  rich  and  powerful  pagan  noble  whom  he  had  baptized 
with  all  his  family.  This  estate  was  a  sort  of  island  amid 
a  vast  marsh,  which  could  scarcely  be  approached,  save  in  a 
boat.  There  rose,  at  the  same  time,  the  celebrated  abbey 
which  at  a  later  period  took  the  name  of  St.  Bertin,  after 


346  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  youngest  of  the  three  monks  sent  from  Luxeuil/  and 
upon  a  neighbouring  height  a  little  church,  which  has  be- 
come the  cathedral  of  the  episcopal  town,  and  is  still  known 
by  the  name  of  the  apostle  of  Morinia.  His  body  was 
deposited  there  after  thirty  years  of  apostolical  labours  and 
heroic  charity,  which  changed  the  aspect  of  the  entire  pro- 
vince. It  is  round  the  cemetery  intended  for  the  reception 
of  the  monks  of  St,  Bertin  that  the  existing  town  of  St. 
Omer  has  been  formed. 

Bertin,  the  countryman  and  relation  of  Omer,  vied  with 
him  in  his  zeal  for  preaching  and  the  conversion  of  the  dio- 
cese which  had  adopted  him.  The  rule  of  St,  Columbanus 
and  the  customs  of  Luxeuil  were  observed  in  his  monastery, 
where  there  were  now  two  hundred  monks,  in  all  their 
severity ;  he  exercised,  like  Columbanus  himself,  an  irre- 
sistible influence  over  the  nobles  who  surrounded  him. 
Aided  by  their  gifts,  and  the  unwearied  diligence  of  his 
monks,  he  at  last  succeeded,  by  successive  elevations  of  the 
soil,  in  transforming  the  vast  marsh  in  which  he  had  estab- 
lished himself  into  a  fertile  plain.  When  he  gave  up  the 
dignity  of  abbot,  which  he  had  held  for  fifty  years,  in  order, 
according  to  the  custom  of  most  of  the  holy  founders  of  those 
days,  to  prepare  himself  better  for  death,  the  great  monastery 
which  has  immortalised  his  name,  and  produced  twenty-two 
saints  venerated  by  the  Church,^  had  attained  the  height  of 
its  moral  and  material  prosperity.^      Of  all  the  swarms  from 

1  Of  the  two  others,  Mommolin  was  the  first  abbot  of  Sithiu,  and  after- 
wards succeeded  St.  Eloysius  in  the  see  of  Noyon.  Ebertramnus  was  abbot 
of  the  monastery  of  St,  Quentin.  The  Annales  Benedict.,  lib,  xvi.  c,  56, 
contains  a  very  curious  miniature  of  the  seventh  century,  in  which  St, 
Mommolin  is  represented  with  the  Scotch  or  Irish  tonsure,  which  had 
been  the  object  of  so  many  disputes,  and  St.  Bertin  with  the  Koman 
tonsure  or  crown,  and  holding  the  curved  cross,  which  was  then  common 
to  abbots  and  bishops. 

2  Among  these  should  be  named  the  Armorican  Winnoc,  of  royal  race,  a 
disciple  of  St.  Bertin,  and  founder  of  the  monastery  and  town  which  bear 
his  name — Berghes-Saint-Winnoc  or  Vinox,     He  died  in  696, 

3  The  BoUandists  (vol.  ii.  Sept. ,  p.  549-630)  have  clearly  elucidated  all  that 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  347 

the  inexhaustible  hive  of  Luxeuil,  none  were  more  productive 
or  brilliant  than  that  with  which  these  four  Alamans,  brought 
from  the  frontiers  of  Helvetia  to  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea, 
enriched  the  wild  Morinian  country.  The  heirs  of  Colum- 
banus  found  themselves  thus  established  upon  the  soil  of 
Belgium,  the  Christian  conquest  of  which  was  half  to  do  over 
again,  and  half  to  begin.  A  noble  part  was  reserved  to  them 
in  this  work,  which  they  were  careful  not  to  fall  short  of. 

The  necessities  of  our  narrative  have  led  us  far  from 
Luxeuil  to  seek  her  distant  colonies  or  scions :  we  must 
now  return  to  her  neighbourhood  to  point  out  the  house 
which  was  perhaps  the  most  illustrious  of  her  daughters. 
Let  us  then  re-enter  that  southern  cluster  of  the  Vosges 
which  marks  the  boundaries  of  Austrasia  and  Burgundy, 
and  where  rise,  not  far  from  each  other,  the  Moselle  and  the 
Meurthe,  the  Meuse  and  the  Saone.  Upon  a  mountain  whose 
base  is  bathed  by  the  clear  and  limpid  waters  of  the  Moselle, 
very  near  its  source,  amid  forests  which,  a  century  ago,  were 
still  inhabited  by  bears,^  and  at  a  distance  of  some  leagues 
north  from  Luxeuil,  rose  a  castle  belonging  to  the  noble 
Eomaric.  This  wealthy  leude  had  seen  his  property  confis- 
cated and  his  father  slain  during  the  fratricidal  struggle 
between  the  two  grandsons  of  Brunehault,  Theodebert  and 
Thierry ;   but  after  the  death  of  the  latter,  he  had  recovered 

belongs  to  the  life  of  St.  Bertin  and  his  various  biographies.  It  may  be  ob- 
served that  the  abbey  of  Sithiu  afterwards  took  the  name  of  St.  Bertin,  as 
happened  to  a  number  of  important  monasteries  which  were  named  from 
their  founder,  or  from  the  saint  whose  relics  were  venerated  there.  Thus 
the  name  of  Agaune  was  replaced  by  that  of  St.  Maurice,  Condat  by  St. 
Eugende  (afterwards  St.  Claude),  Fontenelle  by  St.  Vandrille,  Glanfeuil  by 
St.  Maur,  Leuconaus  by  St.  Valery,  Centule  by  St.  Riquier,  Fleury  by  St. 
Benolt-sur-Loire,  Habend  by  Remiremont,  &c.  This  abbey  of  St.  Bertin,  at 
first  called  Sithiu,  was  the  principal  abbey  of  Artois,  and  the  noblest  orna- 
ment of  the  city  of  St.  Omer,  the  municipality  of  which  destroyed  it  a  few 
years  ago,  under  pretence  of  giving  work  to  the  labourers. — Victor  Hugo, 
Ouerre  aux  Demolisseurs,  1852.  Enough  remains  of  this  immense  church  to 
show  the  pious  grandeur  of  past  generations,  and  the  stupid  Vandalism  of 
their  descendants. 

^  The  last  bear  killed  at  Remiremont  was  in  1709. 


348  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

his  vast  patrimony,  and  occupied  a  high  position  at  the 
court  of  Clotaire  II.,  then  sole  master  of  the  three  Frank 
kingdoms.^ 

While  living  as  a  layman,  this  nobleman  already  practised 
all  the  virtues,  when  God  willed,  as  the  contemporary  nar- 
rator tells,  to  recompense  His  knight  for  the  valour  which 
he  had  displayed  in  the  struggles  of  the  world,  and  to  con- 
duct him  to  the  fields  of  celestial  light.^  Amatus,  a  monk 
of  Luxeuil,  noble  like  himself,  but  of  Roman  race,^  came  to 
preach  in  Austrasia.  This  Amatus,  or  Am^,  had  been  almost 
from  his  cradle  offered  by  his  father  to  the  monastery  of 
Agaune,  which,  situated  near  the  source  of  the  Rhine,  at- 
tracted the  veueration  and  confidence  of  all  the  faithful  of 
the  provinces  bordering  that  river.  He  had  lived  thirty 
years  either  at  Agaune  itself  or  in  an  isolated  cell  upon  the 
top  of  a  rock,  which  still  overhangs  the  celebrated  monas- 
tery, as  if  about  to  crush  it.  There  this  noble  Gallo-Roman, 
always  barefooted  and  clad  in  a  sheep's  skin,  lived  upon  water 
and  barley-bread  alone ;  the  water  gushing  from  a  limpid 
fountain,  which  he  had  obtained  by  his  prayers,  was  received 
in  a  little  basin  which  he  had  hollowed  and  covered  with  lead  ; 
the  barley  was  the  produce  of  a  little  field  which  he  cultivated 
with  his  own  hands,  and  ground  by  turning  a  millstone  with 
his  arms,  like  the  slaves  of  antiquity.  This  fatiguing  labour 
was  to  him  a  preservative  against  sleep  and  the  temptations 
of  the  flesh.  Abbot  Eustace  of  Luxeuil,  returning  from 
Lombardy  after  his  fruitless  mission  to  Columbanus,  stopped 
at  Agaune,  and  decided  Amatus  upon  following  him  to 
Luxeuil.      The  gentleness   of  the   anchorite,  his   eloquence, 

1  "Nobilis  in  palatio  .  .  .  clarissimus  parentibus  procreatus  ...  in 
Lotharii  regis  palatio  cum  cseteris  electus." — Vita  S.  Romarici,  auct.  monacho 
suhpari,  in  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  vol.  ii.  p.  399.  "Qui  primus  inter  nobiles  fuerat 
apud  Theodebertum  habitus." — Vita  S.  Eustasii,  auct.  cocevo  ;  ibid.,  p.  112. 

-  "Ineffabilis  Deus,  videns  militem  suum  sub  tenebrosis  hujus  seeculi 
bellis  fortiter  belligerantem,  voluit  ilium  ad  lucidos  producere  campos." 
—Ibid.,  p.  399. 

3  "Nobilibus  natus  parentibus,  ex  Romana  oriundus  stirpe,  in  suburbio 
Gratianopolitan^  civitatis."—  Vita  S.  Amati,  t.  ii. ;  ibid.,  p.  121. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  349 

and  even  the  noble  and  serene  beauty  of  his  features,  won 
all  hearts.^ 

Amatus  was  nominated  by  the  monks  of  Luxeuil,  on 
account  of  his  eloquence,  to  bear  the  word  of  God  into  the 
Austrasian  cities.  Romaric  received  him  at  his  table,  and, 
during  the  repast,  inquired  of  him  the  best  way  of  working 
out  his  salvation.  "  Thou  seest  this  silver  dish,"  said  the 
monk ;  "  how  many  masters,  or  rather  slaves,  has  it  already 
had,  and  how  many  more  shall  it  have  still  ?  And  thou, 
whether  thou  wilt  or  not,  thou  art  its  serf;  for  thou  possessest 
it  only  to  preserve  it.  But  an  account  will  be  demanded  of 
thee ;  for  it  is  written,  '  Your  silver  and  gold  shall  rust,  and 
that  rust  shall  bear  witness  against  you.'  I  am  astonished 
that  a  man  of  great  birth,  very  rich,  and  intelligent  like 
thyself,  should  not  remember  the  answer  of  the  Saviour  to 
him  who  asked  Him  how  he  should  attain  eternal  life :  '  If 
thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go,  sell  all  thou  hast  and  give  to  the 
poor,  and  follow  Me ;  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven.'"^  From  that  moment  Romaric  was  vanquished 
by  the  love  of  God  and  the  desire  of  heaven.  He  distri- 
buted all  his  lands  to  the  poor,  with  the  exception  of  his 
castle  of  Habend,  freed  a  multitude  of  serfs  of  both  sexes, 
and  went  to  Luxeuil,  taking  with  him  all  that  remained  of 
his  wealth,  to  become  a  monk.  When  he  presented  himself 
to  the  abbot  to  have  his  hair  cut,  according  to  the  rite  of 
admission  into  the  order,  several  of  the  serfs  whom  he  had 

^  "  In  devexo  celsissimi  montis  rupe  .  .  .  per  obliqua  montis  saxosi  inter 
periculosos  scopulos  .  .  .  latitabat.  Cisternum  plumbeam.  .  .  .  Molam 
quam  tunc  manu  agebat,  cum  canenti  ei  fessis  membris  somnus  obreperet 
.  .  .  ut  tentationem  carnis  vel  somnum  corporis  per  laborem  mol«  abigeret 
.  .  .  Serenus  vultu,  hilaris  adspectu,  praeclarus  et  celer  eloquio." — Vita  S. 
Amati,  p.  1 21. 

^  "  Cumque  jam  mensa  posita  esset,  coepit  inter  epulas  flagitare.  .  . 
Cernis  hunc  discum  argenteum ;  quantos  iste  dudum  servos  habuit 
quantosque  deinceps  hibiturus  est.  Et  tu,  velis,  nolis,  nunc  servus  suus 
es.  .  .  .  Ausculta  paululum,  vir  bone  :  cum  sis  nobilitate  parentum  ex 
celsus,  divitiis  inclytus,  ingenioque  sagax,  miror,  si  non  nosti,"  &c. —  Vita 
S.  Amati,  p.  123. 


350  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

liberated  appeared  at  the  monastery  for  the  same  purpose. 
He  gladly  recognised  his  old  servants,  not  only  as  brethren, 
but  as  superiors ;  for  he  sought  the  lowest  occupations  in 
the  monastery,  and  surpassed  all  the  brethren  in  his  care 
for  the  cultivation  of  the  gardens,  where  he  learned  the 
Psalter  by  heart  as  he  laboured.-^ 

After  some  years'  residence  there,  during  which  time  his 
friendship  with  Amatus  became  intimate  and  affectionate, 
the  two  friends  left  Luxeuil,  where,  for  some  unknown 
reason,  they  had  incurred  the  animadversion  of  abbot 
Eustace.  With  his  consent,  however,  they  went  together 
to  the  estate  which  Romaric  had  reserved  to  himself  The 
Castrum  Habendi,  as  it  was  called,  had  been  once  a  Roman 
fortress ;  the  remains  of  a  temple,  statues,  and  some  tombs, 
were  still  visible,  as  at  Luxeuil,  upon  the  height  of  a  steep 
hill,  situated  between  two  valleys,  the  base  of  which  was 
watered  by  two  tributaries  of  the  Moselle.  They  built  a 
church  there,  placed  as  many  as  seven  chapels  upon  the  sides 
of  the  hill,2  and  afterwards  founded  there  the  greatest  female 
monastery  which  had  been  seen  in  Gaul.  Amatus  took  the 
government  of  it,  but  soon  devolved  it  upon  Romaric,  and 
the  house  was  called,  after  the  latter,  Remiremont. 

^  "Illos  denique  servulos  quos  dudum  ministros  habuerat,  socios  sibi 
detondens  plerosque  adjunxit ;  et  effectus  est  illorum  subditus,  quorum 
prius  dominus  prajpotens  fuerat.  ,  .  .  Ut  quidquid  despicabile  in  monas- 
terio  agendum  asset,  ipse  adsumeret.  Hortorum  tamen  frequentius  prse 
ceteris  fratribus  operator  exsistens,  psalmos  jugiter  tradebat  memoriae." — 
Vita  S.  Romarici,  p.  400. 

^  See  for  these  details  the  excellent  Etude  Historique  sur  I'Abbaye  de 
Remiremont,  by  M.  A.  Guinot,  curd  of  Contrexeville  (Paris,  1859),  one  of 
the  best  monographs  which  have  been  published  on  a  monastic  subject. 

^  Romarici  Mons.  But  the  abbey  of  Remiremont  bears,  in  early  docu- 
ments, the  name  of  Moyiasterium  Habendense.  This  first  monastery,  built 
by  Amatus  upon  the  Holy  Mount,  was  destroyed  by  the  Huns.  Re- 
established by  the  emperor  Louis  III.  beyond  the  Moselle  and  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain,  it  became  the  nucleus  of  the  existing  town  of 
Remiremont.  The  nuns  were  afterwards  changed  into  noble  canonesses, 
but  always  under  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.  The  abbess  alone  took  the 
perpetual  vows.     The  others  could  marry  and  return  to  the  world.     The 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  35  I 

In  this  celebrated  abbey,  which  was  immediately  put 
under  the  rule  of  St.  Columbanus  by  its  two  founders, 
everything  was  established  on  a  magnificent  scale,  owing 
to  the  influx  of  the  nuns  and  the  liberality  of  the  Aus- 
trasian  kings  and  nobles.  Clotaire  II.  gave,  at  one  time, 
the  enormous  sum  of  two  hundred  pieces  of  gold  to  the 
foundation  of  his  ancient  leude.  Kemiremont  soon  became 
for  women  what  Luxeuil  already  was  for  men.  The  number 
of  nuns  permitted  the  Laus  perennis  to  be  organised  by 
means  of  seven  choirs,  who  alternately  sang  the  praises  of 
God  in  seven  different  churches  or  chapels.  The  fervour 
and  regularity  of  all  these  virgins  procured  to  the  site 
occupied  by  their  community  the  name  of  the  Holy  Mount, 
which  it  retained  for  some  centuries. 

Romaric  directed  it  for  thirty  years.  Before  entering 
Luxeuil  he  had  been  married,  and  had  three  daughters  ; 
the  two  younger  took  the  veil  in  the  monastery  of  their 
father.  The  eldest,  who  had  married  without  the  consent 
of  Romaric,  and  without  a  fortune,  attempted  to  reclaim  a 
portion  of  her  paternal  inheritance.  She  sent  to  her  father 
her  first  child,  a  girl,  hoping  that  the  heart  of  Romaric 
would  soften,  and  that  he  would  bestow  on  his  grandchild 
what  he  had  refused  to  his  daughter.  The  grandfather 
received  her  with  joy,  but  did  not  send  her  back,  and  had 
her  trained  by  the  nuns,  whose  abbess  she  afterwards 
became.  Then  the  mother,  having  had  a  son,  sent  him, 
before  he  was  even  baptized,  to  his  grandfather,  still  in  the 
hope   that    he   would    make    him    his   heir.      But   Romaric 

proofs  of  nobility  required  before  a  candidate  was  admitted  were  so  diffi- 
cult that  Remiremont  was  reckoned  among  the  most  illustrious  chapters 
in  Europe.  To  mark  the  difference  between  the  different  chapters  of 
women  in  that  age  of  decay,  when  the  most  venerable  institutions  of 
Catholic  antiquity  had  lost  the  true  meaning  of  their  existence,  they 
were  named  thus  :  the  ladies  of  Remiremont,  the  chambermaids  of  Epinal, 
and  the  laundresses  of  Poussey  :  and  that,  notwithstanding  that  eight 
paternal  and  eight  maternal  quarterings  were  necessary  for  admission  to 
Poussey.  The  abbess  of  Remiremont  ranked  as  a  princess  of  the  Holy 
Empire  from  the  time  of  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg. 


352  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

acted  with  him  as  with  his  sister ;  he  kept  the  child,  and 
left  him  no  other  inheritance  than  that  of  the  abbatial 
dignity  with  which  it  was  invested.-^ 

For  there  were  two  monasteries  at  Remiremont,  one  for 
monks  and  the  other  for  nuns,  connected  with  each  other, 
but  with  a  special  superior  for  each  of  the  communities. 
This  was  also  the  case  at  Jouarre,  at  Faremoutier,  and 
wherever  there  were  great  foundations  for  women.  Some- 
times, as  at  Remiremont,  the  abbot  had  the  supreme  govern- 
ment ;  sometimes,  as  we  shall  see  in  Belgium,  it  was  the 
abbess.  The  prohibition  of  the  Council  of  Agde,  in  506,^ 
had,  by  necessity  of  things,  fallen  into  disuse.  The  ranks 
of  that  feminine  clergy,  whose  sacrifice  the  Church  praises 
in  the  liturgy,  increased  every  day.^  It  was  necessary  at 
once  to  protect  and  guide  the  weakness  of  these  spouses  of 
Christ  who  had  taken  refuge  in  forests  and  deserts,  sur- 
rounded by  wild  beasts  or  barbarous  and  semi-pagan  tribes. 
In  the  seventh  century,  and  still  later,  the  Church  did 
nothing  but  encourage  that  custom  which  disappeared  in 
due  time,  and  even  before  any  scandal  had  pointed  out  the 
unsuitable  nature  of  the  arrangement,  in  those  monastic 
annals  where  everything  is  spoken  out  with  bold  and  minute 
frankness.  To  systematic  enemies  of  Catholic  discipline, 
and  to  sceptics  who  may  be  tempted  to  smile,  let  us  recall 
the  touching  and  noble  spectacle,  so  much  admired  and 
praised  a  thousand  years  after  the  foundation  of  Remire- 
mont,  given  by  the  solitaries  of  Port-Royal  during   their 

1  "Expers  hsereditarise  sortis  absque  patris  consilio  nupsit.  .  .  .  Spe- 
rans  hoc  modo  elicere,  quatenus  hjereditatis  pignus,  quod  sibi  jure  com- 
petebat  hfereditario,  restitueret  puellae.  .  .  .  Puerulum,  quern  post  paulo 
pepererat,  transmisit  avo  baptisandum,  atque  ad  relicts  possessionis 
hEeredem  constituendum."— Fita  S.  Addphii,  ap.  BOLLAND.,  t.  iii.  Sept., 
p.  818.  "Nupsit  nobilissimo  splendidissimoque  cuidam  e  Sicambrorum 
gente,  cui  Bithylinus  nomen." — Ibid.,  p.  8ii. 

2  "  Monasteria  puellarum  longius  a  monasteriis  monachorum,  aut  propter 
insidias  diaboli,  aut  propter  oblocutiones  hominum,  coUocentur."— Can.  28. 

3  "  Ora  pro  populo,  interveni  pro  clero,  intercede  pro  devoto  femineo 
sexu." 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  353 

sojonrn  near  the  nuns  of  that  celebrated  valley.  And  a 
voice,  which  cannot  be  suspected,  elsewhere  bears  witness 
thus :  "  The  vicinity  of  the  monasteries,"  says  M.  Michelet, 
"the  abuses  of  which  have  certainly  been  exaggerated, 
created  between  the  brethren  and  sisters  a  happy  emula- 
tion of  study  as  well  as  of  piety.  The  men  tempered  their 
seriousness  by  sharing  in  the  moral  graces  of  the  women. 
They,  on  their  side,  took  from  the  austere  asceticism  of  the 
men  a  noble  flight  towards  divine  things.  Both,  according 
to  the  noble  expression  of  Bossuet,  helped  each  other  to 
climb  the  rugged  path."  ^ 

This  monastery  of  men,  also  placed  under  the  rule  of 
Columbanus  by  its  two  founders,  was  not  the  less  on  that 
account  unfavourable  to  the  spirit  of  the  Irish  rule.  When 
Agrestinus  attempted  to  organise  among  the  numerous  dis- 
ciples of  Columbanus  an  insurrection  against  the  traditions 
of  their  master  and  the  discipline  of  Luxeuil,  he  fell  back 
upon  Remiremont  after  he  had  been  overcome  by  Eustace 
at  the  Council  of  Macon  and  repulsed  by  Burgundofara  at 
Faremoutier.  He  was  well  received  by  Amatus  and  Romaric, 
who  were  already  biassed  against  the  abbot  of  Luxeuil,  and 
still  better  by  their  monks,  who  showed  themselves  unani- 
mous in  their  repugnance  to  the  institutions  of  Columbanus.^ 
Fatal  and  numerous  accidents,  of  which  more  than  fifty  of 
the  religious  were  victims,  some  torn  by  mad  wolves  or 
struck  by  lightning,  others  urged  to  suicide  or  violent 
deaths,  were  necessary  to  lead  them  back.  All  these  mis- 
fortunes, happening  in  such  rapid  succession,  appeared 
warnings  from  on  high,  and  the  disgraceful  death  of 
Agrestinus  himself  opened  their  eyes  completely.  Amatus 
and  Romaric  returned  into  communion  with  Eustace.  The 
former  continued  to  watch  over  the  administration  of  the 

1  Michelet,  Memoire  sur  VEducation  des  Pemmes  au  Moyen  Age.  Read 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Five  Academies,  May  2,  1838. 

2  "  In  contemptum  regulse  B.  Columbani,  .  .  .  Cum  ad  hoc  jam  omnes 
adspirarent  ut  contemptus  pristinarum  assentatores  forent  institutionum." 
— Jonas,  Vita  S.  Eustacii,  c.  13-15. 

VOL.  11.  Z 


354  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

two  houses,  though  he  had  given  up  their  immediate  direc- 
tion. He  was  especially  solicitous  to  root  out  from  among 
these  spiritual  children  the  sin  of  individual  property,  "  My 
dear  and  gentle  brother,"  he  said  one  day  to  a  monk  who 
passed  near  him,  "  I  much  fear  that  the  cunning  of  the 
enemy  has  persuaded  thee  to  something  against  the  rule." 
And  as  the  monk  protested  against  this,  Amabus  took  be- 
tween his  fingers  the  edge  of  the  delinquent's  cowl  precisely 
at  the  spot  where  he  had  sewn  in  a  piece  of  money  with  the 
intention  of  reserving  it  for  his  personal  use,  "  What  have 
you  here,  dear  brother  ?  "  The  monk,  falling  on  his  knees, 
cried,  "  Woe  is  me  !  I  confess  that  I  have  stolen  the  third 
part  of  a  denier  of  gold,"  According  to  the  monastic  spirit, 
it  was  a  theft  made  from  the  community;  but  Amatus 
pardoned  the  culprit,  saying  to  him,  "Let  him  that  stole 
steal  no  more,"  He  condemned  himself  to  make  a  public 
confession  before  his  death,  no  doubt  in  recollection  of 
his  weakness  towards  the  schismatic  Agrestinus,  and  his 
struggles  against  his  abbot  at  Luxeuil.'^  However,  Amatus 
himself  had  retired  into  a  grotto,  closed  up  by  a  projecting 
rock,  so  low  and  so  narrow  that  it  could  scarcely  contain 
him.  As  in  the  case  of  St.  Benedict  at  Subiaco,  a  monk 
lowered  down  to  him,  by  a  cord  from  the  top  of  the  rock, 
the  morsel  of  bread  and  glass  of  water  on  which  he  lived. 
This  severe  penance  was  not  enough  for  him.  When  he 
was  dying  upon  a  bed  of  ashes,  he  had  the  letter  of  the 
Pope  St.  Leo  to  St,  Flavian,  which  contains  a  clear  and 
complete  exposition  of  Catholic  doctrine  upon  the  Trinity 
and  Incarnation,  read  to  him,  as  a  last  and  solemn  protest 
against  every  germ  of  schism. 

As  for  Romaric,  who  long  survived  both  him   and  the 
pious  Mactefleda,  the  first  ruler  of  the  sisters,  he  took  all 

1  "  Frater  mi  ,  .  ,  vereor,  dulcissime  meus.  .  .  .  Oram  cucuUse  tenens, 
ntroque  digito  hinc  inde  complexus  consutum  infra  trientem  reperit.  .  ,  , 
Hoc  ergo  quod  habes,  frater  mi  ?  .  ,  ,  Heu  mihi !  tremissem  furatus  sum, 
.  .  .  Quoniam  de  quisbusdam  factis  meis  me  oportet  poenitere  et  libet." — 
Vita  S.  Amati,  c,  21-23. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  355 

necessary  precautions  to  ensure  the  election  of  the  abbess  of 
his  beloved  monastery  exclusively  by  her  own  community, 
and  that  this  entire  foundation  should  rely  in  temporal 
matters  only  on  the  king,  and  in  spiritual  affairs  only  on 
the  pope.  At  the  end  of  his  life  the  old  warrior  regained 
his  courage  and  the  political  part  he  had  played  of  old.  He 
had  known,  in  the  palace  of  the  kings  of  Austrasia,  the 
great  and  pious  Pepin  de  Landen,  whose  son,  Grimoald,  had 
become  all-powerful,  as  minister  under  King  Sigisbert,  and 
threatened  beforehand  the  rights  and  even  the  life  of  the 
young  heir  of  this  prince.  Prophetically  warned  of  the 
projects  entertained  by  the  son  of  his  old  friend,  Eomaric, 
despite  his  age  and  presentiment  of  approaching  death,  de- 
scended from  his  mountain  and  took  his  way  to  the  palace, 
which  he  had  not  seen  for  thirty  years,  to  intimate  the  perils 
of  the  country  to  the  king  and  nobles.  He  arrived  in  the 
middle  of  the  night :  Grimoald,  on  being  informed  of  his 
approach,  went  to  meet  him  with  lighted  torches.  At  sight 
of  his  father's  friend,  of  this  old  man  of  God,  with  his  ele- 
vated and  imposing  height  and  solemn  aspect,  he  thought 
he  saw,  says  the  historian,  a  supernatural  apparition,  and 
trembled.  However,  he  embraced  him  with  great  respect. 
What  passed  between  them  has  not  been  recorded.  It  is 
only  known  that  Grimoald  overwhelmed  the  old  abbot  with 
presents,  and  promised  to  do  all  that  he  wished.  Three 
days  after,  Romaric,  who  had  returned  to  the  monastery, 
visiting  for  the  last  time,  on  his  way,  the  cultivated  lands 
which  belonged  to  it,  was  dead,  and  buried  beside  Amatus, 
the  master  and  friend  who  had  led  him  to  God  by  the 
rugged  path} 

To  complete  this  rapid  glance  over  the  extension  of  the 

^  "Ad  principis  palatium  .  .  .  ut  regi  seu  proceribus  suis  de  periculo 
eorum  vel  casu  venturo  cavenda  nuntiaret.  .  .  .  Vir  magnificus  Grimoaldus 
subregulus.  .  .  .  Surgens  cum  facibus  accensis  .  .  .  adspiciensque  hominem 
Dei  mirse  magnitudinis,  nescio  quid  tanquam  angelicum  seu  coeleste  signum 
se  super  eum  vidisse  contremuit,  .  .  .  Indeqne  remeans  rura  monasterii 
circuivit." — Vita  S.  Romarici,  c.  11. 


356  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

great  institute  of  Columbanus  in  Frankish  Gaul  in  the 
seventh  century,  it  has  yet  to  be  shown  how,  after  having 
spread  through  both  the  Burgundies  and  Austrasia,  and 
gaining  Armorica,  where  the  British  Celts  naturally  adopted 
with  cordiality  the  work  of  the  Irish  Celt/  it  extended  over 
Neu  stria,  beyond  the  Loire,  and  as  far  as  Aquitaine  ;  ^  and 
for  that  purpose  the  foundation  of  Solignac,  in  Limousin,  by 
St,  Eligius,  must  be  specially  told.  It  took  place  soon  after 
the  Council  of  Macon.  Its  illustrious  founder,  who  had 
visited  the  principal  monasteries  in  Gaul  and  had  perceived 
that  monastic  order  was  nowhere  else  observed  as  it  was  in 
Luxeuil,^  declared  his  desire  to  conform  it  absolutely  to  the 
plan  and  rule  of  the  model  abbey  which  he  had  found  in  the 
Vosges,  and  to  which  he  placed  it  in  direct  subordination. 
But  this  great  man  belongs  still  more  to  the  history  of 
France  than  to  that  of  the  rule  of  Luxeuil.  With  him  we 
touch  upon  a  new  phase  of  the  Merovingian  royalty,  as  with 
the  apostles  of  Morinia  we  are  brought  in  contact  with  the 
conversion  of  Belgium,  and  with  the  founder  of  Remiremont 
approach  the  accession  and  preponderance  of  the  Pepins. 
New  scenes  open  before  us.  To  enter  them,  we  must  leave 
Luxeuil  and  Columbanus,  of  whom,  however,  we  shall  find 
elsewhere  many  a  luminous  and  important  trace. 

But  before  closing  this  chapter  of  our  narrative,  it  is 
necessary  to  establish  a  result  as  unforeseen  as  undeniable. 
It  seems  that  everything  in  the  history  we  have  just  related 
ought  to  have  secured  the  lasting  preponderance  of  the 
rule  and  institute  of  Columbanus  in  the  countries  governed 
by  the  Franks.      A  popularity  so  great  and  legitimate,  the 

1  La  Borderie,  Discours  sur  les  Saints  de  Bretagne,  p.  23.  However, 
few  direct  references  to  this  adoption  of  the  Columbanic  rule  by  Armorican 
monasteries  are  to  be  found. 

2  See  the  Vita  S.  Eustasii,  by  JoNAS,  for  the  five  monasteries  built  in 
Berry  and  Nivernais,  immediately  after  the  Council  of  Macon,  ex  regula  B. 
Columbani. 

3  See  the  passage  quoted,  p.  297.  S.  Audoeni,  Vita  S.  ELigii,  book  i. 
c.  21. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  357 

constant  favour  of  the  Merovingian  kings,  the  generous 
sympathy  of  the  Burgundian  and  Austrasian  nobility,  the 
virtues  and  miracles  of  so  many  saints,  the  immense  and 
perpetually  renewed  ramifications  of  Luxeuil  and  its  off- 
spring, all  should  have  contributed  to  establish  the  ascend- 
ancy of  a  monastic  law  originated  upon  the  soil  of  Gaul, 
and  extended  by  representatives  so  illustrious ; — all  ought 
to  have  procured  it  a  preference  over  that  Italian  rule, 
which  was  older,  it  is  true,  but  the  modest  beginnings  and 
obscure  progress  of  which  in  Gaul  have  escaped  the  notice 
of  history.  This,  however,  was  not  the  case.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  rule  of  Columbanus  was  gradually  eclipsed,  and 
the  rule  of  Benedict  was  introduced  and  triumphed  every- 
where, while  still  we  cannot  instance  a  single  man  above 
the  ordinary  mark,  a  single  celebrated  saint,  who  could  have 
contributed  to  that  surprising  victory,  by  his  personal  influ- 
ence, throughout  the  whole  period  which  we  have  surveyed. 
This  victory  was  complete  half  a  century  after  the  death  of 
the  founder  of  Luxeuil,  and  amid  the  daily  successes  and 
increasing  popularity  of  his  disciples.  Among  those  dis- 
ciples themselves,  some  of  the  first  and  nearest  to  his  heart, 
such  as  his  godson  Donatus,  had  begun  to  combine  the 
Benedictine  precepts  with  his.  The  two  monasteries  which 
he  had  himself  originated  and  dwelt  in,  Luxeuil  and  Bobbio,^ 
under  his  own  immediate  successors,  suffered  or  accepted  its 
sway,  and  extended  it  through  their  colonies.  The  illus- 
trious Eligius,  while  he  formed  his  Limousin  foundation  in 
exact  imitation  of  Luxeuil,  took  care  to  specify  in  its  charter 
that  the  monks  were  to  follow  at  the  same  time  the  rules  of 
both  the  blessed  fathers  Benedict  and  Columbanus.^     The 

1  Mabillon,  PrcBfat.  in  IV.  Scec.  We  have  already  said  that  MabUlon 
goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  Columbanus  himself  introduced  the  Bene- 
dictine rule  at  Bobbio,  but  without  furnishing  the  least  proof  of  his 
assertion. 

2  "  Ea  tamen  conditione  ut  vos  vel  successores  vestri  tramitem  religionis 
sanctissimorum  virorum  Luxoviensis  monasterii  consequamini,  et  regulam 
beatissimorum  Patrum  Benedicti  et  Columbani  firmiter  teneatis." 


358  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

same  stipulation  is  found  of  more  and  more  frequent  re- 
currence in  deciding  what  order  was  to  be  adopted  in  the 
colonies  of  Luxeuil.^  In  this  great  monastic  enlistment, 
which  was  carried  on  among  the  flower  of  the  Gallo-Frank 
population  during  the  whole  of  the  seventh  century,  it  was 
Columbanus  who  raised  the  recruits  and  set  them  out  on 
the  march ;  but  it  was  Benedict  who  disciplined  them,  and 
gave  them  the  flag  and  the  watchword.  Where  Columbanus 
sowed,  it  was  Benedict  who  reaped.  The  Benedictine  rule 
was  gradually  and  everywhere  placed  side  by  side  with  that 
of  Columbanus,  then  substituted  for  his,  until  at  length 
the  latter  dwindled  further  and  further  into  distance,  like 
an  antique  and  respectable  memory,  from  which  life  had 
ebbed  away. 

At  Autun,  in  670,  in  the  heart  of  that  Burgundy  of  which 
Columbanus  seemed  destined  to  be  the  monastic  legislator, 
in  a  council  of  fifty-four  bishops,  held  by  St.  Leger,  who  had 
himself  lived  at  Luxeuil,  six  canons  were  given  forth  exclu- 
sively relative  to  monastic  discipline  ;  in  which  the  observa- 
tion and  fulfilment,  in  all  their  fulness,  of  the  precepts  of 
the  canons  of  the  Church  and  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  are 
enjoined  upon  all  the  Religious  ;  and  the  Council  adds  :  "  If 
these  are  legitimately  and  fully  observed  by  the  abbots  and 
monasteries,  the  number  of  the  monks  will  always  increase 
by  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  whole  world  will  be  saved  from 
the  contagion  of  sin  by  their  incessant  prayers."  ^    The  Gallo- 

1  Particularly  at  Hautvilliers,  B^ze,  Maurmunster,  Corbie,  and  at  the 
Monasterium  Possatense,  near  Paris,  since  so  celebrated  as  St.  Maur-les- 
Fosses.  In  a  charter  of  641,  the  nuns  of  the  latter  house  are  described  as 
living  "sub  regula  S.  Benedicti  ad  modum  et  similitudinem  monasterii 
Luxoviensis." — Annal.  Benedict.,  lib.  xii.  c.  58.  See  also  the  charter  of  St. 
Amand  for  the  monastery  of  Barisy,  near  Laon :  "  Ubi  ccEnobium  sub 
regula  Domni  Benedicti  seu  Domni  Columbani  constituere  inchoavimus." — 
Ap.  Act.  SS.  0.  S.  B.,  t.  ii.  p.  1044  ;  and  that  of  the  Bishop  of  Chalons  for 
Montier-en-Der  :  "  Side  tepide  egerunt  .  .  .  secundum  regulam  sancti  Bene- 
dicti vel  Domni  Columbani  corrigantur." — Ibid.,  t.  iii.  p.  570' 

2  "  De  abbatibus  vero  vel  monachis  ita  observare  convenit,  ut  quidquid 
canonicus  ordo  vel  regula  S.  Benedicti  edocet  et  implere,  et  custodire  in 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  359 

Frank  Church  thus  proclaimed  its  unqualified  adhesion  to  the 
rule  which  St.  Maur  had  brought  from  Latium  a  hundred  and 
twenty  years  before :  the  great  Irish  monk  had  scarcely  been 
fifty  years  dead,  and  already  no  mention  is  made  either  of 
his  rule  or  his  person. 

How  can  we  explain  this  complete  and  universal  substi- 
tution of  Benedictine  influence  for  that  of  the  Hibernian 
legislator,  even  in  his  own  foundations  ;  and  that,  we  repeat, 
without  the  appearance  of  any  mind  of  the  highest  stamp 
exclusively  devoted  to  the  traditions  of  Monte  Cassino  ? 
Must  it  be  attributed  to  the  individual  and  national  spirit, 
from  which  Columbanus  either  could  not  or  would  not  com- 
pletely separate  himself?  Was  this  the  hidden  vice  which 
consumed  the  vitality  of  his  work  ?  No,  certainly  ;  for  if 
this  powerful  individuality  had  inspired  the  least  dislike,  he 
could  not  have  attracted,  during  his  life,  nor  after  his  death, 
that  myriad  of  disciples,  more  numerous,  and  especially  more 
illustrious,  than  all  those  of  Benedict. 

We  must  then  seek  the  reason  of  his  failure  elsewhere, 
and  it  is  to  be  found,  in  our  opinion,  in  the  much  closer  and 
more  intimate  union  of  the  Benedictine  Kule  with  the  autho- 
rity of  the  Roman  See.  We  have  proved  that  neither  in 
Columbanus  nor  among  his  disciples  and  offspring,  was  there 
any  hostility  to  the  Holy  See,  and  we  have  quoted  proofs  of 
the  respect  of  the  popes  for  his  memory.  Nor  had  Benedict, 
any  more  than  Columbanus,  either  sought  or  obtained  during 
his  lifetime  the  sovereign  sanction  of  the  papacy  for  his 
institution.  But  long  after  his  death,  and  at  the  very  time 
when  Columbanus  was  busied  in  planting  his  work  in  Gaul, 
the  saint  and  the  man  of  genius  who  occupied  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter,  Gregory  the  Great,  had  spontaneously  impressed 

omnibus  debeant :  si  enim  hsec  omnia  fuerint  legitime  apud  abbates  et 
monasteria,  et  numerus  monachorum  Deo  propitio  augebitur,  et  mundus 
omnis,  per  eorum  orationes  assiduas,  malis  carebit  contagiis."  The  date 
of  this  Council  is  not  certain  ;  some  place  it  in  665,  others  in  670  or  674. 
Mabillon  inclines  towards  this  latter  date. 


360  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

the  seal  of  supreme  approbation  upon  the  Benedictine  Rule. 
This  adoption  of  the  work  Gregory  had  preluded  by  the 
celebration  of  its  author  in  those  famous  Dialogues,  the  popu- 
larity of  which  was  to  be  so  great  in  all  Catholic  commu- 
nities. The  third  successor  of  Gregory,  Boniface  IV.,  in  a 
council  held  at  Rome  in  610,  and  by  a  famous  decree  which 
we  reproach  ourselves  for  not  having  mentioned  before,  had 
condemned  those  who,  moved  more  by  jealousy  than  charity, 
held  that  the  monks,  being  dead  to  the  world  and  living  only 
for  God,  were  by  that  reason  rendered  unworthy  and  incap- 
able of  exercising  the  priesthood  and  administering  the  sacra- 
ments. The  decree  of  this  Council  recognises  the  power  of 
binding  and  loosing  in  monks  lawfully  ordained,  and  to 
confound  the  foolish  assumptions  of  their  adversaries,  quotes 
the  example  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  who  had  not  been  kept 
back  from  the  Supreme  See  by  his  monastic  profession,  and 
of  many  others  who  under  the  monastic  frock  had  already 
worn  the  pontifical  ring.  But  it  especially  appeals  to  the 
authority  of  Benedict,  whom  it  describes  as  "  the  venerable 
legislator  of  the  monks,"  and  who  had  interdicted  them  only 
from  interference  in  secular  affairs.^  It  proclaims  anew,  and 
on  the  most  solemn  occasion,  that  the  Rule  of  Benedict  was 
the  supreme  monastic  law.  It  impresses  a  new  sanction  upon 
all  the  prescriptions  of  him  whom  another  pope,  John  IV., 
the  same  who  exempted  Luxeuil  from  episcopal  authority, 
called,  thirty  years  later,  the  abbot  of  the  city  of  Rome} 

Thus  adopted  and  honoured  by  the  papacy,  and  identified 
in  some  sort  with  the  authority  of  Rome  itself,  the  influence 
of  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict  progressed  with  the  progress 

^  "  Sunt  nonnulli  stulti  dogmatis.  .  .  .  Apostolici  compar  sedes  B.  Grego- 
rius  monachico  cultu  pollens  ad  summum  nullatenus  apicem  conscenderet. 
Alii  quoque  sanctissimi  pretiosissimo  monachorum  habitu  fulgentes  nequa- 
quam  annulo  pontificali  suborbarentur. — Neque  Benedictus  monachorum 
prEeceptor  almificus." — COLETTi,  Concil.,  t.  iv.  p.  1355. 

2  "  Et  baud  procul  a  nostris  temporibus  Benedicti  abbatis  istius  Romas 
hujus  urbis." — Charter  of  exemption  given  to  a  female  monastery  at  the 
request  of  King  Clovis  II.     Annal.  Benedict.,  t.  ii.  Append.,  p.  688. 


ST.    COLUMBANUS  36 1 

of  the  Roman  Church.  I  am  aware  that  up  to  the  seventh 
century,  the  intervention  of  the  popes  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Church  in  France  was  much  less  sought  and  less  efficacious 
than  in  after  ages ;  but  it  was  already  undoubtedly  sove- 
reign, and  more  than  suflBcient  to  win  the  assent  of  all  to 
a  specially  Roman  institution. 

Without  weakening  the  foregoing  argument,  another  ex- 
planation might  be  admitted  for  the  strange  course  of  things 
which,  in  the  space  of  a  single  century,  eclipsed  the  Rule  and 
name  of  Columbanus,  and  changed  into  Benedictine  monas- 
teries all  the  foundations  due  to  the  powerful  missionary 
impulse  of  the  Irish  Apostle.  The  cause  which  produced 
in  Western  Christendom  the  supremacy  of  St.  Benedict's 
institute  over  that  of  his  illustrious  rival,  was  most  likely  the 
same  which  made  the  Rule  of  St.  Basil  to  prevail  over  all 
the  other  monastic  Rules  of  the  East — namely,  its  modera- 
tion, its  prudence,  and  the  more  liberal  spirit  of  its  govern- 
ment. When  the  two  legislatures  of  Monte  Cassino  and  of 
Luxeuil  met  together,  it  must  have  been  manifest  that  the 
latter  exceeded  the  natural  strength  of  man,  in  its  regula- 
tions relating  to  prayer,  to  food,  and  to  penal  discipline, 
and  above  all,  in  its  mode  of  government,  St.  Benedict  had 
conquered  by  the  strength  of  practical  sense,  which  in  the 
end  always  wins  the  day. 

One  of  those  great  rivers,  which,  like  the  Moselle  or  the 
Saone,  have  their  source  near  Luxeuil  itself,  offers  a  meet 
symbol  of  the  fate  which  awaited  the  work  of  St.  Colum- 
banus. We  see  it  first  spring  up,  obscure  and  unknown, 
from  the  foot  of  the  hills ;  we  see  it  then  increase,  extend, 
grow  into  a  broad  and  fertilising  current,  watering  and  flowing 
through  vast  and  numerous  provinces.  We  expect  it  to  con- 
tinue indefinitely  its  independent  and  beneficent  course.  But, 
vain  delusion  !  Lo,  another  stream  comes  pouring  onward 
from  the  other  extremity  of  the  horizon,  to  attract  and  to 
absorb  its  rival,  to  draw  it  along,  to  swallow  up  even  its 
name,  and,  replenishing  its  own  strength  and  life  by  these 


362  ST.    COLUMBANUS 

captive  waters,  to  pursue  alone  and  victorious  its  majestic 
course  towards  the  ocean.  Thus  did  the  current  of  Colum- 
banus's  triumphant  institution  sink  into  the  forgotten  tribu- 
tary of  that  great  Benedictine  stream,  which  henceforward 
flowed  forth  alone  to  cover  Gaul  and  all  the  West  with  its 
regenerating  tide. 


BOOK   VIII 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGIN  OF  THE  BRITISH  ISLES 


Enlarge  the  place  of  thy  tent,  and  let  them  stretch  forth  the  curtains 
of  thine  habitations  :  spare  not,  lengthen  thy  cords,  and  strengthen 
thy  stakes  :  for  thou  shalt  break  forth  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the 
left ;  and  thy  seed  shall  inherit  the  Gentiles,  and  make  the  desolate 
cities  to  be  inhabited. — Isaiah  liv.  2,  3. 


363 


CHAPTER  I 

GREAT   BRITAIN   BEFORE   THE    CONVERSION    OP 
THE    SAXONS 


Character  of  the  English  nation. — Heir  of  the  Romans,  it  borrows  from 
them  only  their  grandeur  and  their  pride.— From  whence  comes  its 
religion  ?  From  popes  and  monks.— England  has  been  made  by 
monks,  as  France  by  bishops. — The  heroes  who  resisted  the  Empire : 
Caractacus,  Boadicea,  Galgacus. — No  trace  of  Roman  law  exists  in 
Britain  ;  all  is  Celtic  or  Teutonic. — Britain  the  first  of  the  Western 
nations  which  could  live  without  Rome,  and  the  first  which  could 
resist  the  Barbarians. — Ravages  of  the  Picts. — Gildas. — Arrival  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons  in  Britain. — Their  destruction  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity.— Origin  of  British  Christianity. — The  proto-martyr  St.  Alban, 
— Ravages  of  the  Saxons. — Liberal  aid  given  by  the  Papacy. — Mission 
of  Palladius,  and  afterwards  of  St.  Germain  of  Auxerre. — Battle  of 
the  Hallelujah. — The  Briton  Ninian  becomes  the  apostle  of  the 
Southern  Picts. — His  establishment  at  Whitehorn. — Ferocity  of  the 
Caledonians. — His  death. — Glastonbury  :  legend  of  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thea :  tomb  of  King  Arthur. — Position  of  Britain  between  the  years 
450  and  550. — The  four  different  races:  the  Picts,  the  Scots,  the 
Britons,  and  the  Saxons. — From  whence  did  the  light  of  the  Gospel 
come  to  the  Saxons  ? 

In  modern  Europe,  at  a  distance  of  seven  leagues  from 
France,  within  sight  of  our  northern  shores,  there  exists  a 
nation  whose  empire  is  more  vast  than  that  of  Alexander 
or  the  Ceesars,  and  which  is  at  once  the  freest  and  most 
powerful,  the  richest  and  most  manful,  the  boldest  and  best 
regulated  in  the  world.  No  other  nation  offers  so  instructive 
a  study,  so  original  an  aspect,  or  contrasts  so  remarkable. 
At  once  liberal  and  intolerant,  pious  and  inhuman,  loving 
order  and  serenity  as  much  as  noise  and  commotion,  it 
unites  a  superstitious  respect  for  the  letter  of  the  law  with 
36s 


366  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN   OF 

the  most  unlimited  practice  of  individual  freedom.  Busied 
more  than  any  other  in  all  the  arts  of  peace,  yet  nevertheless 
invincible  in  war,  and  sometimes  rushing  into  it  with  frantic 
passion — too  often  destitute  of  enthusiasm,  but  incapable 
of  failure — it  ignores  the  very  idea  of  discouragement  or 
effeminacy.  Sometimes  it  measures  its  profits  and  caprices 
as  by  the  yard,  sometimes  it  takes  fire  for  a  disinterested  idea 
or  passion.  More  changeable  than  any  in  its  affections  and 
judgments,  but  almost  always  capable  of  restraining  and 
stopping  itself  in  time,  it  is  endowed  at  once  with  an  origi- 
nating power  which  falters  at  nothing,  and  with  a  perse- 
verance which  nothing  can  overthrow.  Greedy  of  conquests 
and  discoveries,  it  rushes  to  the  extremities  of  the  earth,  yet 
returns  more  enamoured  than  ever  of  the  domestic  hearth, 
more  jealous  of  securing  its  dignity  and  everlasting  duration. 
The  implacable  enemy  of  bondage,  it  is  the  voluntary  slave 
of  tradition,  of  discipline  freely  accepted,  or  of  a  prejudice 
transmitted  from  its  fathers.  No  nation  has  been  more  fre- 
quently conquered ;  none  has  succeeded  better  in  absorbing 
and  transforming  its  conquerors.  In  no  other  country  has 
Catholicism  been  persecuted  with  more  sanguinary  zeal ;  at 
the  present  moment  none  seems  more  hostile  to  the  Church, 
and  at  the  same  time  none  has  greater  need  of  her  care ;  no 
other  influence  has  been  so  greatly  wanting  to  its  progress ; 
nothing  has  left  within  its  breast  a  void  so  irreparable ;  and 
nowhere  has  a  more  generous  hospitality  been  lavished  upon 
our  bishops  and  priests  and  religious  exiles.  Inaccessible  to 
modern  storms,  this  island  has  been  an  inviolable  asylum  for 
our  exiled  fathers  and  princes,  not  less  than  for  our  most 
violent  enemies. 

The  sometimes  savage  egotism  of  these  islanders,  and 
their  too  often  cynical  indifference  to  the  sufferings  and 
bondage  of  others,  ought  not  to  make  us  forget  that  there, 
more  than  anywhere  else,  man  belongs  to  himself  and 
governs  himself.  It  is  there  that  the  nobility  of  our  nature 
has  developed  all  its  splendour  and  attained  its  highest  level. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  367 

It  is  there  that  the  generous  passion  of  independence,  united 
to  the  genius  of  association  and  the  constant  practice  of  self- 
government,  have  produced  those  miracles  of  fierce  energy, 
of  dauntless  vigour,  and  obstinate  heroism,  which  have 
triumphed  over  seas  and  climates,  time  and  distance,  nature 
and  tyranny,  exciting  the  perpetual  envy  of  all  nations,  and 
among  the  English  themselves  a  proud  enthusiasm.^ 

Loving  freedom  for  itself,  and  loving  nothing  without 
freedom,  this  nation  owes  nothing  to  her  kings,  who  have 
been  of  importance  only  by  her  and  for  her.  Upon  herself 
alone  weighs  the  formidable  responsibility  of  her  history. 
After  enduring,  as  much  or  more  than  any  European  nation, 
the  horrors  of  political  and  religious  despotism  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  she  has  been  the  first  and 
the  only  one  among  them  to  free  herself  from  oppression  for 
ever.  Ee-established  in  her  ancient  rights,  her  proud  and 
steadfast  nature  has  forbidden  her  since  then  to  give  up  into 
any  hands  whatsoever,  her  rights  and  destinies,  her  interests 
and  free  will.  She  is  able  to  decide  and  act  for  herself, 
governing,  elevating,  and  inspiring  her  great  men,  instead 
of  being  seduced  or  led  astray  by  them,  or  worked  upon  for 
their  advantage.  This  English  race  has  inherited  the  pride 
as  well  as  the  grandeur  of  that  Roman  people  of  which  it 

^  This  enthusiasm  has  never  been  better  expressed  than  in  those  lines 
which  Johnson,  the  great  English  moralist  of  last  century,  repeated  with 
animation  on  his  return  from  his  visit  to  the  monastic  island  of  lona,  the 
cradle  of  British  Christianity,  whither  we  are  shortly  to  conduct  our 
readers  : 

"  Stern  o'er  each  bosom  Reason  holds  her  state, 

With  daring  aims  irregularly  great ; 

Pride  in  their  port,  defiance  in  their  eye, 

I  see  the  lords  of  human  kind  pass  by  ; 

Intent  on  high  designs,  a  thoughtful  band, 

By  forms  unfashioned,  fresh  from  nature's  hand, 

Fierce  in  their  native  hardiness  of  soul. 

True  to  imagined  right,  above  control ; 

While  even  the  peasant  boasts  these  rights  to  scan, 

And  learns  to  venerate  himself  as  man." 

—Goldsmith,  The  Traveller. 


368  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

is  the  rival  and  the  heir  ;  I  mean  the  true  Romans  of  the 
Republic,  not  the  base  Romans  subjugated  by  Augustus. 
Like  the  Romans  towards  their  tributaries,  it  has  shown 
itself  ferocious  and  rapacious  to  Ireland,  inflicting  upon  its 
victim,  even  up  to  recent  times,  that  bondage  and  degrada- 
tion which  it  repudiates  with  horror  for  itself.  Like  ancient 
Rome,  often  hated,  and  too  often  worthy  of  hate,  it  inspires 
its  most  favourable  judges  rather  with  admiration  than  with 
love.  But,  happier  than  Rome,  after  a  thousand  years  and 
more,  it  is  still  young  and  fruitful.  A  slow,  obscure,  but 
uninterrupted  progress  has  created  for  England  an  inex- 
haustible reservoir  of  strength  and  life.  In  her  veins  the 
sap  swells  high  to-day,  and  will  swell  to-morrow.  Happier 
than  Rome,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  false  conclusions,  a 
thousand  excesses,  a  thousand  stains,  she  is  of  all  the 
modern  races,  and  of  all  Christian  nations,  the  one  which 
has  best  preserved  the  three  fundamental  bases  of  every 
society  which  is  worthy  of  man — the  spirit  of  freedom,  the 
domestic  character,  and  the  religious  mind. 

How,  then,  has  this  nation,  in  which  a  perfectly  pagan 
pride  survives  and  triumphs,  and  which  has  nevertheless 
remained,  even  in  the  bosom  of  error,  the  most  religious  ^  of 
all  European  nations,  become  Christian  ?  How  and  by 
what  means  has  Christianity  struck  root  so  indestructibly 
in  her  soil  ?  This  is  surely  a  question  of  radical  interest 
among  all  the  great  questions  of  history,  and  one  which 
takes  new  importance  and  interest  when  it  is  considered 
that  upon  the  conversion  of  England  there  has  depended, 
and  still  depends,  the  conversion  of  so  many  millions  of 
souls.  English  Christianity  has  been  the  cradle  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Germany ;  from  the  depths  of  Germany,  mission- 
aries formed  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  carried  the  faith  into 

1  This  may  be  considered  a  surprising  statement.  It  expresses  how- 
ever, a  conviction  founded  upon  personal  comparisons  and  studies  made 
during  nearly  forty  years  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe  except  Kussia. 
It  agrees,  besides,  with  the  results  ascertained  by  one  of  the  most  con- 
scientious and  clear-sighted  observers  of  our  time,  M.  Le  Play. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  369 

Scandinavia  and  among  the  Slaves ;  and  even  at  the  present 
time,  either  by  the  fruitful  expansion  of  Irish  orthodoxy,  or 
by  the  obstinate  zeal  of  the  Protestant  propaganda,  Chris- 
tian societies,  which  speak  English  and  live  like  English- 
men, come  into  being  every  day  throughout  North  America, 
in  the  two  Indies,  in  immense  Australia,  and  in  the  Isles  of 
the  Pacific.  The  Christianity  of  nearly  half  of  the  world 
flows,  or  will  flow,  from  the  fountain  which  first  burst  forth 
upon  British  soil. 

It  is  possible  to  answer  this  fundamental  question  with 
the  closest  precision.  No  country  in  the  world  has  received 
the  Christian  faith  more  directly  from  the  Church  of  Rome, 
or  more  exclusively  by  the  ministration  of  monks. 

If  France  has  been  made  by  bishops,  as  has  been  said  by 
a  great  enemy  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  still  more  true  that 
Christian  England  has  been  made  by  monks.  Of  all  the 
countries  of  Europe  it  is  this  that  has  been  the  most  deeply 
furrowed  by  the  monastic  plough.  The  monks,  and  the 
monks  alone,  have  introduced,  sowed,  and  cultivated  Chris- 
tian civilisation  in  this  famous  island. 

From  whence  came  these  monks?  From  two  very  dis- 
tinct sources — from  Rome  and  Ireland.  British  Christianity 
was  produced  by  the  rivalry,  and  sometimes  by  the  conflict, 
of  the  monastic  missionaries  of  the  Roman  and  of  the  Celtic 
Church. 

But  before  its  final  conversion,  which  was  due,  above  all, 
to  a  pope  and  to  monks  produced  by  the  Benedictine  order, 
Great  Britain  possessed  a  primitive  Christianity,  obscure  yet 
incontestable,  the  career  and  downfall  of  which  are  worthy 
of  a  rapid  survey. 

Of  all  the  nations  conquered  by  Rome,  the  Britons  were 
those  who  resisted  her  arms  the  longest,  and  borrowed  the 
least  from  her  laws  and  manners.  Vanquished  for  a  moment, 
but  not  subdued,  by  the  invincible  Csesar,  they  forced  the 
executioner  of  the  Gauls,  and  the  destroyer  of  Roman  free- 
dom, to  leave  their  shores,  without  having  established  slavery 
VOL.  II.  2  A 


370  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

there.      Less  happy  under  his  unworthy  successors,  reduced 
to  a  province,  and  given  up  as  a  prey  to  avarice  and  lusury, 
to  the  ferocity  of  usurers/  of   procurators,  and   of  imperial 
lieutenants,  they  long  maintained  a  proud  and  noble  attitude, 
which  contrasted  with  the  universal  bondage.      Jam  domiti 
ut  'par cant,  nondum  ut  serviant?     To  be  subjects  and  not  to 
be  slaves — it  is  the  first  and  the  last  word  of  British  history. 
Even  under  Nero,  the  Britons  laughed  at  the  vile  freedmen 
whom  the  Csesars  imposed  upon  the  dishonoured  universe  as 
administrators  and  magistrates.^      Long  before  it  was  beaten 
down  and  revivified  by  the  successive  invasions  of  three  Teu- 
tonic races — the  Saxons,   Danes,  and  Normans — the  noble 
Celtic  race  had  produced  a  succession  of  remarkable  person- 
ages who,  thanks  to  Tacitus,   shine  with   an  imperishable 
light   amidst  the   degradation   of  the   world:    the   glorious 
prisoner  Caractacus,   the  British  Vercingetorix,   who  spoke 
to  the  emperor  in  language  worthy  of  the  finest  days  of  the 
Eepublic — "  Because  it  is  your  will  to  enslave  us,  does  it 
follow  that  all  the  world  desires  your  yoke  ?"*  and  Boadicea, 
the  heroic  queen,  exhibiting  her  scourged  body  and  her  out- 
raged  daughters  to  excite  the  indignant  patriotism  of  the 
Britons,  betrayed  by  fortune  but  saved  by  history ;  and,  last 
of  all,  Galgacus,  whose  name  Tacitus  has  made  immortal,  by 
investing  him  with  all  the  eloquence  which  conscience  and 
justice  could  bestow  upon  an  honest  and  indignant  man,  in 
that  speech  which  we  all  know  by  heart,  and  which  sounded 
the  onset  for  that  fight  in  which  the  most  distant  descen- 
dants of  Celtic  liberty  were  to  cement  with  their  blood  the 
insurmountable  rampart  of  their  mountain  independence. 

1  Such  as  Seneca  himself,  according  to  Dion  Cassius. 

2  Tacitus,  Agricola,  c.  13. 

3  "  Hostibus  irrisui  fuit,  apud  quos  flagrante  etiam  turn  libertate,  non- 
dum  cognita  libertorum  potentia  erat :  mirabanturque,  quod  dux,  et  exer- 
citus  tanti  belli  confector,  servitiis  obedirent."— ^rmaL,  xiv.  39. 

■*  "  Num,  si  vos  omnibus  imperitare  vultis,  sequitur  ut  omnes  servitutem 
accipiant  1  "—Ibid.,  xii.  37. 

6  "  Initium  libertatis  totius  Britannise.  .  .  .  Nos  terrarum  ac  libertatis 
extremes." 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  37  I 

It  was  thus  that  Britain  gave  a  prelude  to  the  glorious 
future  which  freedom  has  created  for  herself,  through  so 
many  tempests  and  eclipses,  in  the  island  which  has  finally 
become  her  sanctuary  and  indestructible  shelter. 

The  civil  code  of  Rome,  which  weighs  heavily  still,  after 
the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries,  upon  France,  Spain,  Italy, 
and  Germany,  reigned  without  doubt  in  Britain  during  the 
period  of  Roman  occupation  ;  but  it  disappeared  with  the 
reign  of  the  Cassars.  Its  unwholesome  roots  never  wound 
around,  stifled,  or  poisoned  the  vigorous  shoots  of  civil, 
political,  and  domestic  freedom.  The  same  thing  may  be 
said  of  all  other  similar  influences.  Neither  in  the  institu- 
tions nor  in  the  monuments  of  Britain  has  imperial  Rome 
left  any  trace  of  her  hideous  domination.  Its  language  and 
its  habits  have  escaped  her  influence  as  well  as  its  laws. 
There,  all  that  is  not  Celtic  is  Teutonic.  It  was  reserved 
for  Catholic  Rome,  the  Rome  of  the  popes,  to  leave  an 
ineSaceable  impression  upon  this  famous  island,  and  there 
to  reclaim,  for  the  immortal  majesty  of  the  Gospel,  that 
social  influence  which  everywhere  else  has  been  disputed  or 
diverted  from  it  by  the  fatal  inheritance  which  the  Rome  of 
the  Caesars  left  to  the  world. 

At  the  same  time,  after  having  been  the  last  of  the' 
Western  nations  to  yield  to  the  Roman  yoke,  Britain  was 
the  first  to  free  herself  from  it  ;  she  was  the  first  capable  of 
throwing  oS"  the  imperial  authority,  and  showing  the  world 
that  it  was  possible  to  do  without  an  emperor.  When  the 
powerlessness  of  the  empire  against  barbaric  incursions  had 
been  demonstrated  in  Britain  as  elsewhere,  the  Britons  were 
not  false  to  themselves.  The  little  national  monarchies,  the 
clans  aristocratically  organised,  whose  divisions  had  occa- 
sioned the  triumph  of  the  Roman  invasion,  reappeared 
under  native  chiefs.  A  kind  of  federation  was  constituted, 
and  its  leaders  signified  to  the  Emperor  Honorius,  in 
410,  by  an  embassy  received  at  Ravenna,  that  hence- 
forward   Britain   reckoned   upon  defending  and  governing 


372  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

herself.^  A  great  writer  has  already  remarked,  that  of 
all  the  nations  subdued  by  the  Eoman  Empire  it  is  the 
Britons  alone  whose  struggle  with  the  barbarians  had  a 
history — and  the  history  of  that  resistance  lasted  two  cen- 
turies. Nothing  similar  occurred  at  the  same  period,  under 
the  same  circumstances,  among  the  Italians,  the  Gauls,  or 
the  Spaniards,  who  all  allowed  themselves  to  be  crushed 
and  overthrown  without  resistance.^ 

At  the  same  time,  Britain  herself  had  not  passed  with 
impunity  through  three  centuries  and  a  half  of  imperial 
bondage.  As  in  Gaul,  as  in  all  the  countries  subjugated  by 
the  Eoman  Empire,  dependence  and  corruption  had  ended 
by  enervating,  softening,  and  ruining  the  vigorous  popula- 
tion. The  sons  of  those  whom  Caesar  could  not  conquer, 
and  who  had  struggled  heroically  under  Claudius  and  Nero, 
soon  began  to  think  themselves  incapable  of  making  head 
against  the  barbarians,  amissa  virtute  pariicr  ac  libertate. 
They  sought  in  vain  the  intervention  of  the  Roman  legions, 
which  returned  to  the  island  on  two  different  occasions, 
without  succeeding  in  delivering  or  protecting  it.  At  the 
same  time,  the  barbarians  who  came  to  shake  and  overthrow 
the  sway  of  the  Caesars  in  Britain  were  not  foreigners,  as 
were  the  Goths  in  Italy  and  the  Franks  in  Gaul.  Those 
Caledonians  who,  under  Galgacus,  victoriously  resisted  Agri- 
cola,  and  who,  under  the  new  names  of  Scots  and  Picts, 
breached  the  famous  ramparts  erected  against  them  by 
Antoninus  and  Severus,  and  resumed  year  after  year  their 
sanguinary  devastations,  wringing  from  Britain,  overwhelmed 
and  desolated  by  half  a  century  of  ravage,  that  cry  of  dis- 

1  "Romanum  nomen  tenens,  legem  abjiciens." — GiLDAS,  De  Excidio 
Britannia.  ZosiME,  IJist.  Nova,  book  vi.  pp.  376,  381.  Compare  LiNGARD, 
History  of  England,  c.  i.  Amedee  Thiekry,  Aries  ct  le  Tyran  Constantin, 
p.  309. 

^  GUIZOT,  Essai  sur  V  Histoire  de  France,  p.  2.  In  Gaul  only  the  Ar- 
vernes,  the  compatriots  of  Vercingetorix,  had  one  noble  inspiration,  when 
Ecdicius  compelled  the  Goths  to  raise  the  siege  of  Clermont  in  471,  but  it 
was  but  a  passing  gleam  in  the  night. 


THE    BRITISH   ISLES  373 

tress  which  is  known  to  all — "  The  barbarians  have  driven 
us  to  the  sea,  the  sea  drives  us  back  upon  the  barbarians. 
We  have  only  the  choice  of  being  murdered  or  drowned  ;  "  ^ 
were  nothing  more  than  unsubdued  tribes  belonging  to 
Britain  herself. 

Everybody  knows  also  how  imprudently  the  Britons 
accepted  the  assistance  against  the  Picts,  of  the  warlike  and 
maritime  race  of  Anglo-Saxons,  and  how,  themselves  not 
less  cruel  nor  less  formidable  than  the  Picts,  those  allies, 
becoming  the  conquerors  of  the  country,  founded  there  a 
new  power,  or,  to  speak  more  justly,  a  new  nationality, 
which  has  victoriously  maintained  its  existence  through  all 
subsequent  conquests  and  revolutions.  These  warriors  were 
an  offshoot  from  the  great  Germanic  family — as  were  also, 
according  to  general  opinion,  the  Britons  themselves — and 
resembled  the  latter  closely  in  their  institutions  and  habits ; 
which  did  not,  however,  prevent  the  native  population  from 
maintaining  against  them,  during  nearly  two  centuries,  a 
heroic,  although  in  the  end  useless  resistance.^  The  Anglo- 
Saxons,  who  were  entirely  strangers  to  Roman  civilisation, 
took  no  pains  to  preserve  or  re-establish  the  remains  of  the 
imperial  rule.  But  in  destroying  the  dawning  independence 
of  the  Britons,  in  driving  back  into  the  hilly  regions  of  the 
west  that  part  of  the  population  which  was  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  long  knives  from  which  they  derived  their 
name,^  the  pagan  invaders  overthrew,  and  for  a  time  an- 
nihilated, upon  the  blood-stained  soil  of  Great  Britain  an 
edifice  of  a  majesty  very  different  from  that  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  of  endurance  more  steadfast  than  that  of  Celtic 
nationality — the  edifice  of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  is  known  with  certainty  that  Christianity  existed  in 

^  "Actio  ter  consuli  gemitus  Britannorum.  Repellunt  nos  barbari  ad  mare, 
repellit  mare  ad  barbaros.  Inter  haec  oriuntur  duo  genera  funerum  :  aut 
jugulamur  aut  mergimur." 

^  This  resistance  has  been  nowhere  so  well  described  as  by  M.  Arthur  de 
la  Borderie  in  the  Revue  Bretonne  of  1864. 

^  Sax,  knife,  sword,  in  old  German. 


374  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

Britain  from  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  but 
nothing  is  positively  known  as  to  the  origin  or  organisation 
of  the  primitive  Church  ;  according  to  Tertullian,  however, 
she  had  penetrated  into  Caledonia  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
Roman  province.^  She  furnished  her  contingent  of  martyrs 
to  the  persecution  of  Diocletian,  in  the  foremost  rank  among 
whom  stood  Alban,  a  young  deacon,  whose  tomb,  at  a  later 
date,  was  consecrated  by  one  of  the  principal  Anglo-Saxon 
monasteries.  She  appeared,  immediately  after  the  peace  of 
the  Church,  in  the  persons  of  her  bishops,  at  the  first  Western 
councils.  And  she  survived  the  Roman  domination,  but  only 
to  fight  for  her  footing  inch  by  inch,  and  finally  to  fall  back, 
with  the  last  tribes  of  the  Britons,  before  the  Saxon  invaders, 
after  an  entire  century  of  efforts  and  sufferings,  of  massacres 
and  profanations.  During  all  this  period,  from  one  end  of 
the  isle  to  the  other,  the  Sr.xons  carried  fire  and  sword  and 
sacrilege,  pulling  down  public  buildings  and  private  dwell- 
ings, devastating  the  churches,  breaking  the  sacred  stones  of 
the  altars,  and  murdering  the  pastors  along  with  their  flocks.^ 
Trials  so  cruel  and  prolonged  necessarily  disturbed  the 
habitual  communication   between  the  Christians  of  Britain 

^  "  Britannorum  inaccessa  Romanis  loca,  Christo  vero  subdita." — Tbr- 
TUL.,  Adv.  Judceos,  c.  7. 

2  "  Accensus  manibus  paganorum  ignis  .  .  .  ab  orientali  mare  usque  ad 
occidentale  .  .  .  totam  prope  insulse  pereuntis  superficiem  obtexit.  Ruebant 
sedificia  publica,  simul  et  privata  ;  passim  sacerdotes  inter  altaria  trucida- 
bantur,  preesules  cum  populis,  sine  ullo  respectu  honoris,  ferro  pariter  et 
flammis  absumebantur." — Beda,  Hist.  Ecclesiastica  Gentis  Anglorum,  book  i. 
c.  15.  Compare  Gildas,  De  Excidio  Britannke.  Opinions  are  divided  as  to 
the  complete  or  partial  destruction  of  the  Britons  in  the  districts  conquered 
by  the  Saxons.  Palgrave  especially  has  questioned  ordinary  tradition  upon 
this  fact.  However,  the  Saxon  historians  themselves  have  proved  more  than 
one  case  of  complete  extermination.  The  first  Saxons  established  by  Cerdic, 
founder  of  the  kingdom  of  Wessex,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  destroyed  the 
entire  native  population  there.  "  Paucos  Britones,  ejusdem  insulae  accolas, 
quos  in  ea  invenire  potuerunt  .  .  .  occiderunt :  cseteri  enim  accolse  ejusdem 
insulse  ante  aut  occisi  erant,  aut  exules  aufugerant."- — Assek,  p.  5,  ap. 
LlNGARD,  i.  19.  "  Hoc  anno  (490)  JSlla  et  Cissa  obsederunt  Andredesces- 
ter  (in  Sussex)  et  interfecerunt  omnes  qui  id  incolerent,  adeo  ut  ne  unus 
Brito  ibi  superstes  fuerit." — Citron.  Anglo-Sax.,  ad  ann.  490,  ed.  Gibson. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  375 

and  the  Eoman  Church;  and  this  absence  of  intercourse 
occasioned  in  its  turn  the  diversities  of  rites  and  usages, 
especially  in  respect  to  the  celebration  of  Easter,  which  will 
be  discussed  further  on.  At  present  it  is  enough  to  state 
that  the  most  attentive  study  of  authentic  documents  reveals 
no  doctrinal  strife,  no  diversity  of  belief,  between  the  British 
bishops  and  the  Bishop  of  bishops  at  Rome.  Besides,  the 
Rome  of  the  popes  was  lavishing  its  lights  and  consolations 
upon  its  daughter  beyond  sea,  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
Rome  of  the  Ceesars  abandoned  her  to  disasters  which  could 
never  be  repaired. 

The  British  Church  had  become  acquainted  with  the 
dangerous  agitations  of  heresy  even  before  she  was  con- 
demned to  her  mortal  struggle  against  Germanic  paganism, 
Pelagius,  the  great  heresiarch  of  the  fifth  century,  the  great 
enemy  of  grace,  was  born  in  her  bosom.  To  defend  herself 
from  the  contagion  of  his  doctrines,  she  called  to  her  aid  the 
orthodox  bishops  of  Gaul.  Pope  Celestine,  who,  about  the 
same  period,  had  sent  the  Roman  deacon  Palladius  to  be  the 
first  bishop  of  the  Scots  of  Ireland,  or  of  the  Hebrides,^ 
warned  by  the  same  Palladius  of  the  great  dangers  which 

^  "  Palladius  ad  Scotos  in  Christum  credentes  ordinatus  a  papa  Celestino 
primus  episcopus  mittitur." — Pkospee,  Chron.  Consvlare,  ad  arm.  429.  In 
another  work  this  contemporary  adds  :  "  Et  ordinate  Scotis  episcopo,  dum 
Romanam  insulam  studet  servare  catholicam,  fecit  etiam  barbaram  Chris- 
tianam." — Lib.  contra  Collat.,  c.  14.  But  the  small  success  of  that  mission, 
of  which  there  is  no  mention  even  in  the  historic  documents  of  Ireland, 
gives  probability  to  the  conjecture  of  M.  Varin,  who  concludes  that  Pal- 
ladius was  charged  solely  with  the  care  of  the  Scots  already  established  in 
the  Hebrides,  and  upon  the  western  shores  of  Caledonia.  This  is  the  best 
place  to  mention  a  saint,  venerated  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  as  the  disciple 
of  Palladius,  St.  Ternan,  described  as  archbishop  of  the  Picts  in  the  litur- 
gical books  of  Aberdeen,  which  have  made  of  St.  Palladius  (t  towards  450) 
a  contemporary  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great  (t  604).  The  memory  of  this  saint 
has  been  brought  again  to  light  by  the  recent  publication  of  a  very  curious 
liturgical  relic.  Liber  Ecdesie  Beati  Terrcnani  de  Arbuthnott,  sea  3fissale  secun- 
dum usum  Ecclesice  Sancti  Andrea  in  Scotia,  which  we  owe  to  Dr.  Forbes, 
Anglican  Bishop  of  Brechin.  But  the  article  devoted  to  him  by  the  Bol- 
landists  {Act.  SS.,  Junii,  vol.  ii.  pp.  533-35)  does  not  put  an  end  to  the 
uncertainty  which  prevails  as  to  his  existence. 


376  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

threatened  the  faith  in  Britain,  charged  our  great  Bishop  of 
Auxerre,  St.  Germain,  to  go  and  combat  there  the  Pelagian 
heresy.  This  prelate  paid  two  visits  to  Britain,  fortifying 
her  in  the  orthodox  faith  and  the  love  of  celestial  grace. 
Germain,  who  was  accompanied  the  first  time  by  the  Bishop 
of  Troyes/  and  the  second  by  the  Bishop  of  Treves,  employed 
at  first  against  the  heretics  only  the  arms  of  persuasion.  He 
preached  to  the  faithful  not  only  in  the  churches,  but  at 
cross-roads  and  in  the  fields.  He  argued  publicly  against 
the  Pelagian  doctors  in  presence  of  the  entire  population, 
assembled  with  their  wives  and  children,  who  gave  him  the 
most  absorbed  attention.^  The  illustrious  bishop,  who  had 
been  a  soldier  in  his  youth,  showed  once  more  the  bold  ardour 
of  his  early  profession  in  defence  of  the  people  whom  he 
came  to  evangelise.  At  the  head  of  his  disarmed  converts 
he  marched  against  a  horde  of  Saxons  and  Picts,  who  were 
leagued  together  against  the  Britons,  and  put  them  to  flight 
by  making  his  band  repeat  three  times  the  cry  Hallehijah, 
which  the  neighbouring  mountains  threw  back  in  echoes. 
This  is  the  day  known  as  the  Victory  of  the  Halldvjdh? 
It  would  have  been  well  could  he  have  preserved  the  victors 
from  the  steel  of  the  barbarians  as  he  succeeded  in  curing 
them  of  the  poison  of  heresy ;  for  after  his  visit  Pelagianism 
appeared  in  Britain  only  to  receive  its  deathblow  at  the 
synod  of  519.  By  means  of  the  disciples  whom  he  trained, 
and  who  became  the  founders  of  the  principal  monasteries  of 
Wales,  it  is  to  our  great  Gallican  saint  that  Britain  owes  her 
first  splendours  of  cenobitical  life. 

The  celebrated  Bishop  of  Auxerre  and  his  brethren  were 
not  the    only  dignified  ecclesiastics  to  whom    the    Eoman 

^  St.  Lupus,  educated  at  the  monastic  school  of  Lerins,  and  so  well 
known  for  his  moral  victory  over  Attila. — See  ante,  vol.  i.  p.  352. 

^  "  Divinus  per  eos  sermo  ferme  quotidie,  non  solum  in  ecclesiis,  verum 
etiam  per  trivia,  per  rura  prasdicabatur.  .  .  .  Immensa  multitude  etiam  cum 
conjugibus  etliberis  excita  convenerat,  et  erat  populus  expectator  et  futurus 
judex  .  .  .  vix  manus  continet,  judicium  tamen  clamore  testatur." — ^Bede, 
i.  18.  ^  "  Pugna  alleluiatica." 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  377 

Church  committed  the  care  of  preserving  and  propagating 
the  faith  in  Britain.  Towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
at  the  height  of  the  Caledonian  invasions,  the  son  of  a  Breton 
chief,  Ninias  or  Ninian,  went  to  Rome  to  refresh  his  spirit 
in  the  fountains  of  orthodoxy  and  discipline,  and,  after  having 
lived,  prayed,  and  studied  there  in  the  school  of  Jerome  and 
Damasus/  he  received  from  Pope  Siricius  episcopal  ordina- 
tion. He  conceived  the  bold  thought,  in  returning  to  Britain, 
of  meeting  the  waves  of  northern  barbarians,  who  continued 
to  approach  ever  nearer  and  more  terrible,  by  the  only  bul- 
wark which  could  subdue,  by  transforming  them.  He  under- 
took to  convert  them  to  the  Christian  faith.  The  first  thing 
he  did  was  to  establish  the  seat  of  his  diocese  in  a  distant 
corner  of  that  midland  district  which  lies  between  the  two 
isthmuses  that  divide  Great  Britain  into  three  unequal  parts. 
This  region,  the  possession  of  which  had  been  incessantly 
disputed  by  the  Picts,  the  Britons,  and  the  Romans,  had 
been  reduced  into  a  province,  under  the  name  of  Valentia, 
only  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Valentin ianus,  and  com- 
prehended all  the  land  between  the  wall  of  Antoninus  on 
the  north,  and  the  wall  of  Severus  to  the  south.  Its  western 
extremity,  the  part  of  the  British  coast  which  lay  nearest  to 
Ireland,  bore  at  that  time  the  name  of  Galwidia  or  Gallo- 
way.^ It  forms  a  sort  of  peninsula,  cut  by  the  sea  into 
several  vast  and  broad  promontories.  It  was  on  the  banks 
of  one  of  the  bays  thus  formed,  upon  a  headland  from  which 
the  distantfheights  of  Cumberland  and  the  Isle  of  Man  may 
be  distinguished,  that  Ninian  established  his  ecclesiastical 
headquarters  by  building  a  stone  church.  This  kind  of 
edifice,  till  then  unknown  in  Britain,  gained  for  the  new 
cathedral  and  its  adjoining  monastery  the  name  of  Candida 

1  *'  Nynia  episcopo  reverentissimo  et  sanctissimo  viro,  de  natione 
Britonum,  qui  erat  Rom«  regnlariter  fidem  et  mysteria  veritatis  edoc- 
tus." — Bede,  iii.  4. 

-  This  province,  so  called  during  all  the  middle  ages,  is  represented  in 
modern  maps  by  the  counties  of  Wigtown  and  Kirkcudbright. 


378  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

Casa,  or  Whitehorn/  which  is  still  its  title.  He  consecrated 
the  church  to  St.  Martin,  the  illustrious  apostle  of  the  Gauls, 
to  visit  whom  he  had  stopped  at  Tours,  on  his  way  back  from 
Eome,  and  who,  according  to  tradition,  gave  him  masons 
capable  of  building  a  church  in  the  Roman  manner.  The 
image  of  this  holy  man,  who  died  at  about  the  same  time 
as  Ninian  established  himself  in  his  White  House,  the  recol- 
lection of  his  courage,  his  laborious  efforts  against  idolatry 
and  heresy,  his  charity,  full  of  generous  indignation  against 
all  persecutors,^  were  well  worthy  to  preside  over  the  apostolic 
career  of  the  new  British  bishop,  and  to  inspire  him  with 
the  self-devotion  necessary  for  beginning  the  conversion  of 
the  Picts, 

What  traveller  ever  dreams  in  our  days,  while  surveying 
western  Scotland  from  the  banks  of  the  Solway  to  those  of 
the  Forth  and  Tay,  passing  from  the  gigantic  capitals  of 
industry  to  the  fields  fertilised  by  all  the  modern  improve- 
ments of  agriculture,  meeting  everywhere  the  proofs  and 
productions  of  the  most  elaborate  civilisation, — who  dreams 
nowadays  of  the  obstacles  which  had  to  be  surmounted 
before  this  very  country  could  be  snatched  from  barbarism  ? 
It  is  but  too  easy  to  forget  what  its  state  must  have  been 
when  Ninian  became  its  first  missionary  and  bishop.  Not- 
withstanding many  authors,  both  sacred  and  profane — Dion 
and  Strabonius,  St.  John  Chrysostom  and  St.  Jerome — have 

^  Horn,  hern,  Saxon  am,  house.  On  an  island  near  the  shore  there  is 
still  shown  a  little  ruined  church  which  is  said  to  have  been  built  by  St. 
Ninian.  The  diocese  which  he  founded  disappeared  after  his  death  ;  but 
it  was  re-established  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  as  was  also  the  community,  to 
whom  the  famous  Alcuin  addressed  a  letter  entitled  Adfratrcs  S.  Ninian 
in  Candida  C'asa.  A  new  invasion  of  the  Picts,  this  time  from  Ireland, 
destroyed  for  the  second  time  the  diocese  of  Galloway,  which  was  re- 
established only  ia  the  twelfth  century,  under  King  David  I.  The 
beautiful  ruins  of  this  cathedral,  which  is  comparatively  modern,  and 
was  destroyed  by  the  Presbyterians,  are  seen  in  the  town  of  Whitehorn. 
The  tomb  of  St.  Ninian  was  always  much  frequented  as  a  place  of 
pilgrimage  before  the  Reformation. 

^  See  ante,  vol.  i.  p.  388. 


THE   BRITISH   ISLES  379 

emulated  each  other  in  painting  the  horrible  cruelty,  the 
savage  and  brutal  habits,  of  those  inhabitants  of  North 
Britain,  who,  successively  known  under  the  name  of  Cale- 
donians, Meaice,  Attacoti}  Scots,  or  Picts,  were  most  probably 
nothing  more  than  the  descendants  of  the  British  tribes 
whom  Rome  had  not  been  able  to  subdue.^  All  agree  in 
denouncing  the  incestuous  intercourse  of  their  domestic 
existence,  and  they  have  even  been  accused  of  cannibalism.^ 
All  express  the  horror  with  which  the  subjects  of  the  Empire 
regarded  those  monsters  in  human  form,  who  owed  tlaeir 
final  name  of  Picts  to  their  habit  of  marching  to  battle 
naked,  disclosing  bodies  tattooed,  like  those  of  the  savage 
islanders  of  the  Pacific,  with  strange  devices  and  many 
colours.  Notwithstanding,  Ninian  did  not  hesitate  to  trust 
himself  in  the  midst  of  those  enemies  of  faith  and  civilisa- 
tion. He,  the  son  and  representative  of  that  British  race 
which  they  had  been  accustomed  for  more  than  a  century 
to  massacre,  spoil,  and  scorn,  spent  the  twenty  years  that 
remained  of  his  life  in  unwearied  eSbrts  to  bring  them  into 
the  light  from  on  high,  to  lead  them  back  from  cannibalism 
to  Christianity,  and  that  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
Roman  Empire,  as  represented  by  Honorius,  had  abandoned 
Britain  to  its  implacable  destroyers. 

Unfortunately  there  remain  no  authentic  details  of  his 
mission,^  no  incident  which  recalls  even  distantly  the  clearly 
characterised   mission   of   his   successor,   St.   Coluraba,  who 

1  These  Attacoti,  to  whom  St.  Jerome  attributes  morals  and  cruelties 
which  win  not  bear  description,  inhabited,  according  to  the  general 
opinion,  the  picturesque  district  north  of  the  Clyde,  at  present  traversed 
by  so  many  travellers,  between  Loch  Lomond  and  Loch  Fyne. 

-  PalgraVE,  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Enrjlish  Commonwealth,  vol.  i. 
p.  419.  This  is  true,  however,  only  of  the  Picts,  for  the  Scots  unques- 
tionably came  from  Ireland,  the  Scotia  of  the  middle  ages. 

^  See  specially  St.  Jerome,  in  Jovinianum,  book  ii. 

•*  The  Bollandists  {die  i6th  September)  do  not  admit  the  authenticity 
of  the  life  of  St.  Ninian,  written  in  the  twelfth  century  by  the  holy  abbot 
^Lred,  which  contains  only  such  miracles  as  are  to  be  found  everywhere, 
without  any  specially  characteristic  feature. 


38o  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

became,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  the  apostle  of  the  Northern 
Picts.  We  only  know  that  he  succeeded  in  founding,  in 
the  midst  of  the  Pictish  race,  a  nucleus  of  Christianity  which 
was  never  altogether  destroyed  ;  after  which,  crossing  the 
limits  which  Agricola  and  Antoninus  had  set  to  the  Roman 
sway  at  the  time  of  its  greatest  splendour,  he  went,  preach- 
ing the  faith,  to  the  foot  of  those  Grampians  where  the 
father-in-law  of  Tacitus  gained  his  last  unfruitful  victory.^ 
We  know  that  his  memory  remains  as  a  blessing  among 
the  descendants  of  the  Picts  and  Scots,  and  that  many 
churches  consecrated  under  his  invocation  still  preserve  the 
recollection  of  that  worship  which  was  vowed  to  him  by  a 
grateful  posterity  ; "  and,  finally,  we  know  that,  when  above 
seventy,  he  returned  to  die  in  his  monastery  of  the  White 
House,  after  having  passed  the  latter  portion  of  his  life, 
preparing  himself  for  the  judgment  of  God,  in  a  cave  still 
pointed  out  half-way  up  a  white  and  lofty  cliff  on  the 
Galloway  shore,  upon  which  beat,  without  cease,  the  im- 
petuous waves  of  the  Irish  Sea.^ 

But  in  the  primitive  British  Church,  which  was  so  cruelly 
afflicted  by  the  heathens  of  the  north  and  of  the  east,  by  the 
Picts  and  the  Saxons,  there  were  many  other  monasteries 
than  that  of  Ninian  at  Whitehorn.  All  the  Christian 
churches  of  the  period  were  accompanied  by  cenobitical 
institutions,  and  Gildas,  the  most  trustworthy  of  British 
annalists,  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  their  existence  in  Britain.* 
But  history  has  retained  no  detailed  recollection  of  them. 
Out  of  Cambria,  which  will  be  spoken  of  hereafter,  the  only 

^  "  Ipsi  australes  Picti  qui  infra  eosdem  naontes  habent  sedes  .  .  .  re- 
licto  errore  idololatrife  fidem  veritatis  acceperant  piEedicanti  eis  verbum 
Ninia  episcopo." — Bedb,  iii.  4. 

-  Even  beyond  the  Grampians,  as  far  as  the  point  where  Glen  Urquhart 
opens  upon  Loch  Ness,  and  where  St.  Columba  (see  further  on,  Book  IX. 
chap,  iii.)  went  to  visit  an  old  Pict  when  dying,  a  ruined  chapel  is  still  to 
be  seen  bearing  the  name  of  St.  Ninian,  from  which  it  has  been  supposed 
that  his  mission  passed  the  limit  which  has  been  ordinarily  assigned  to  it. 

3  Lives  of  the  Enylish  Saints,  1845,  No.  xiii.,  p.  131. 

■*  De  Excidio  Britannia,  pp.  43-45. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  38 1 

great  monastic  institution  whose  name  has  triumphed  over 
oblivion  belongs  to  legend  rather  than  to  history  ;  but  it  has 
held  too  important  a  place  in  the  religious  traditions  of  the 
English  people  to  be  altogether  omitted  here.  It  was  an 
age  in  which  Catholic  nations  loved  to  dispute  among  them- 
selves their  priority  and  antiquity  in  the  profession  of  the 
Christian  faith,  and  to  seek  their  direct  ancestors  among  the 
privileged  beings  who  had  known,  cherished,  and  served 
the  Son  of  God  during  His  passage  through  this  life.  They 
aspired  by  these  legendary  genealogies  to  draw  themselves 
somehow  closer  to  Calvary,  and  to  be  represented  at  the 
mysteries  of  the  Passion.  For  this  reason  Spain  has  vic- 
toriously claimed  as  her  apostle  the  son  of  Zebedee,  the 
brother  of  St.  John — that  James  whom  Jesus  led  with  Him 
to  the  splendours  of  Tabor  and  to  the  anguish  of  the  Garden 
of  Olives.  For  this  reason  the  south  of  France  glories  in 
tracing  back  its  Christian  origin  to  that  family  whose  sorrows 
and  love  are  inscribed  in  the  Gospel — to  Martha,  who  was 
the  hostess  of  Jesus ;  to  Lazarus,  whom  He  raised  up ;  to 
Mary  Magdalene,  who  was  the  first  witness  of  His  own 
resurrection ;  to  their  miraculous  journey  from  Judea  to 
Provence ;  to  the  martyrdom  of  one,  to  the  retreat  of  an- 
other in  the  Grotto  of  St.  Baume ; — admirable  traditions, 
which  the  most  solid  learning  of  our  own  day  has  justified 
and  consecrated.^  England  in  other  days,  with  much  less 
foundation,  loved  to  persuade  herself  that  she  owed  the  first 
seed  of  faith  to  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  the  noble  and  rich 
disciple  ^  who  laid  the  body  of  the  Lord  in  the  sepulchre 
where  the  Magdalene  came  to  embalm  it.  The  Britons,  and 
after  them  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  Anglo-Normans,  handed 
down  from  father  to  son  the  tradition  that  Joseph,  flying  the 
persecutions  of  the  Jews,  and  carrying  with  him  for  all  his 

1  See  the  great  and  learned  work  published  by  M.  Falllon,  Director  of 
Saint-Sulpice,  under  the  title  of  Monuments  inidits  sur  I'Apostolat  de  Sainte 
Marie  Madeleine  en  Provence.  Paris,  1848.  Compare  BOUCHE,  Defense  de 
la  Poi  de  Provence  pour  ses  Saints  Lazare,  Maximin,  Marthe,  et  Madeleine. 

•  "Nobilis  decurio." — S.  Maec. 


382  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

treasure  some  drops  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  landed  on 
the  western  coast  of  England  with  twelve  companions ;  that 
he  there  found  an  asylum  in  a  desert  place  surrounded  by 
water,^  and  that  he  built  and  consecrated  to  the  blessed 
Virgin  a  chapel,  the  walls  of  which  were  formed  by  entwined 
branches  of  willow,  and  the  dedication  of  which  Jesus  Christ 
Himself  did  not  disdain  to  celebrate.  The  same  legend  has 
been  told  since  then  of  two  great  and  famous  monastic 
churches — that  of  St.  Denis  in  France,  and  of  Notre  Dame 
des  Ermites  in  Switzerland.^  This  spot,  destined  to  become 
the  first  Christian  sanctuary  of  the  British  Isles,  was  situated 
upon  a  tributary  of  the  gulf  into  which  the  Severn  falls.  It 
afterwards  received  the  name  of  Glastonbury  ;  and  such  was, 
according  to  the  unchangeable  popular  conviction,  the  origin 

1  GUILLELMUS  Malmesbueiensis,  Antiq.  Olastonb.,  ap.  Gale,  Script. 
Rer.  Britann.,  vol.  iii.  p.  293.  Compare  Baronius,  Ann.,  ad  ann.  48. 
DuGDALE,  Monasticon,  vol.  i.  p.  2.  The  Bollandists  and  various  other 
modern  historians  have  taken  much  pains  to  refute  this  tradition.  It  is, 
however,  repeated  in  the  letter  which  some  monks  addressed  to  Queen 
Mary  in  1553,  to  ask  the  re-establishment  of  their  abbey  (ap.  Dugdale, 
vol.  i.  p.  9  of  the  new  edition).  In  consequence  of  this  tradition  of  Joseph 
of  Arimathea,  the  ambassadors  of  England  claimed  precedence  of  those  of 
France,  Spain,  and  Scotland  at  the  Councils  of  Pisa  in  1409,  of  Constance 
in  1414,  and,  above  all,  of  Bale  in  1434,  because,  according  to  them,  the 
faith  had  been  preached  in  France  only  by  St.  Denis,  and  later  than  the 
mission  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea. — UsSHEK,  De  Prim.  Eccl.  Brit.,  p.  22. 

2  The  following  narrative,  told  by  William  of  Malmesbury,  shows  to 
what  extent  this  legend  was  accepted  in  France  up  to  the  twelfth  century  : 
"Monachus  quidam  Glastonise,  Godefridus  nomine  (de  cujus  epistola 
hoc  capitulum  assumpsimus),  tempore  Henrice  Blesensis  abbatis  Glas- 
toniensis,  cum  in  pago  Parisiacensi  apud  Sanctum  Dionysium  moraretur  ; 
senior  quidam  ex  monachis  interrogavit  eum  :  '  Quo  genus  1  Unde  domo  1 ' 
Eespondit :  '  Normannum  e  Britanniee  monasterio,  quod  Glastingeia  dice- 
tur,  monachum. — Papas !  inquit,  an  adhuc  stat  ilia  perpetuaj  Virginis  et 
misericordife  Matris  vetusta  ecclesia  ? — Stat,'  inquit.  Turn  ille  lepido 
attactu  caput  G.  Glastoniensis  demulcens,  diu  silentio  suspensum  tenuit, 
ac  sic  demum  ora  resolvit  :  '  Hsec  gloriosissimi  martyris  Dionysii  ecclesia 
et  ilia,  de  qua  te  asseris,  eamdem  privilegii  dignitatem  habent ;  ista  in 
Gallia,  ilia  in  Britannia,  uno  eodem  tempore  exortse,  a  summo  et  magno 
pontifice  consecratse.  Uno  tamen  gradu  ilia  supereminet  :  Roma  etenim 
secunda  vocatur.' " 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  383 

of  the  great  abbey  of  that  name,  which  was  afterwards 
occupied  by  monks  of  Irish  origin.^  This  sanctuary  of  the 
primitive  legends  and  national  traditions  of  the  Celtic  race 
was  besides  supposed  to  enclose  the  tomb  of  King  Arthur, 
who  was,  as  is  well  known,  the  personification  of  the  long 
and  bloody  resistance  of  the  Britons  to  the  Saxon  invasion, 
the  heroic  champion  of  their  liberty,  of  their  language,  and 
of  their  faith,  and  the  first  type  of  that  chivalrous  ideal  of 
the  middle  ages  in  which  warlike  virtues  were  identified 
with  the  service  of  God  and  of  our  Lady,^  Mortally  wounded 
in  one  of  these  combats  against  the  Saxons,  which  lasted 
three  successive  days  and  nights,  he  was  carried  to  Glaston- 
bury, died  there,  and  was  buried  in  secret,  leaving  to  his 
nation  the  vain  hope  of  seeing  him  one  day  reappear,^  and 
to  the  whole  of  Christian  Europe  a  legendary  glory,  a  memory 
destined  to  emulate  that  of  Charlemagne. 

Thus  poetry,  history,  and  faith  found  a  common  home  in 
the  old  monastery,  which  was  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years  one  of  the  wonders  of  England,  and  which  still  re- 
mained erect,  flourishing,  and  extensive  as  an  entire  town, 
up  to  the  day  when  Henry  VIII.  hung  and  quartered  the 

1  The  curious  collection  entitled  Monasticon  Anglicanurn,  with  the  ad- 
mirable plates  of  W.  Hollar,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  editions  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  should  be  consulted  upon  this  famous  abbey,  as  also 
upon  all  the  others  we  may  name.  The  bones  of  King  Arthur  were  sup- 
posed to  have  been  found  at  Glastonbury  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  at  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century. 

2  See  all  the  many  poems  on  the  Round  Table  in  England,  France,  and 
Germany,  and  especially  the  three  great  poems  entitled  Parceval,  Titurd, 
and  Lohengrin,  which  turn  upon  the  worship  of  the  Saint  Graal  or  Sang 
Rial,  that  is  to  say,  the  blood  of  our  Lord,  coUected  by  Joseph  of  Arima- 
thea,  and  preserved  in  the  vase  which  Jesus  Christ  had  used  in  the 
institution  of  the  Eucharist. 

3  Compare  Thieery,  Hist,  de  la  Conquete  d' Angleterre,  book  i.  p.  39. 
LAPPENBEEG,  vol.  i.  pp.  104-107.  M.  de  la  Borderie,  in  his  fine  narrative 
of  the  struggle  of  the  insular  Britons  with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  has  well 
distinguished  the  hyperbolical  personage  of  legendary  tradition  from  the 
real  Arthur,  chief  of  the  league  of  Britons  of  the  south  and  west,  and 
conqueror  of  the  Saxons,  or  rather  of  the  Angles,  in  twelve  battles. 


384  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

last  abbot  before  the  great  portal  of  the  confiscated  and  pro- 
faned sanctuary.^ 

But  we  return  to  the  reality  of  history,  and  to  the  period 
which  must  now  occupy  our  attention,  that  which  extends 
from  the  middle  of  the  fifth  to  that  of  the  sixth  century, 
the  same  age  in  which  the  Merovingians  founded  in  Gaul 
the  Frankish  kingdom,  so  beloved  by  the  monks ;  and  St. 
Benedict  planted  upon  Monte  Cassino  the  cradle  of  the 
greatest  of  monastic  orders.  Great  Britain,  destined  to  be- 
come the  most  precious  conquest  of  the  Benedictines,  oSered 
at  that  moment  the  spectacle  of  four  different  races  des- 
perately struggling  against  each  other  for  the  mastery. 

In  the  north  were  the  Picts  and  Scots,  still  strangers  and 
enemies  to  the  faith  of  Christ,  intrenched  behind  those 
mountains  and  gulfs,  which  gained  for  them  the  character 
of  transmarine  foreigners,  people  from  beyond  seas  ;  ^  con- 
tinually threatening  the  southern  districts,  which  they  had 
crushed  or  stupefied  for  a  century  by  the  intermitting  re- 
currence of  their  infestations;  and  from  which  they  were 
driven  only  by  other  barbarians  as  heathen  and  as  savage 
as  themselves. 

Further  down,  in  that  region  which  the  gulfs  of  Clyde, 
Forth,  and  Solway  constitute  the  central  peninsula  of  the 
three  which  compose  Great  Britain,  were  other  Picts  per- 
manently established,  since  448,  in  the  land  which  they 
had  torn  from  the  Britons,  and  among  whom  the  apostle 
Ninian  had  sown  the  seeds  of  Christianity.^ 

To  the  south-west,  and  upon  all  the  coast  which  faces 

1  14th  May  1539.— This  martyr  was  accused  of  having  withdrawn  from 
the  hand  of  the  spoiler  some  part  of  the  treasure  of  the  abbey.  He  was 
pursued  and  put  to  death  by  the  zeal  of  John  Russell,  founder  of  the 
house  of  Bedford,  and  one  of  the  principal  instruments  of  the  tyranny  of 
Henry  VIII. 

2  Gildas  and  Bede  call  them  ' '  gcntes  transmarinas :  non  quod  extra 
Britanniam  essent  positse,  sed  quia  a  parte  Brittonum  erant  remotse." 

^  "  Picti  in  extrema  parte  insvlce  "  (that  is  to  say,  of  the  Roman  isle,  in 
Valentia),  "  tunc  primum  et  deinceps  requieverunt,  prsedas  et  contritiones 
nonnunquam  facientes,"  &c.— Gildas,  apud  Gale,  p.  13. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  385 

Ireland  remained  a  native  and  still  independent  population 
It  was  here  that  the  unhappy  Britons— abandoned  by  the 
Romans,  decimated,  ravaged,  and  trodden  down  for  a  century 
by  the  Picts;  then  for  another  century  spoiled,  enslaved 
driven  from  their  towns  and  fields  by  the  Saxons;  then 
driven  back  again,  some  to  the  mountains  of  Wales  others 
to  that  tongue  or  horn  of  land  which  is  called  Cornwall 
Lornu  walhm,  others  to  the  maritime  district  which  extends 
from  the  banks  of  the  Clyde  to  those  of  the  Mersey  i— still 
found  an  asylum. 

Finally,  in  the  south-east,  all  the  country  which  is  now 
England  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the  Anglo-Saxons,  who  were 
occupied  m  laying,  under  the  federative  form  of  the  seven 
or  eight  kingdoms  of  the  Heptarchy,  the  immovable  founda- 
tions of  the  most  powerful  nation  of  the  modern  world. 

^  But,  like  the  Picts  of  the  north,  the  Anglo-Saxons  were 
still  heathens.      From  whence  shall  come  to  them  the  light 
1  This  was  the  kingdom  of  Strath-ayde,  which  later  took  the  name  of 
Cambria,  and  of  which  a  vestige  remains,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  popu- 
lation more  British  than  Saxon,  in  the  existing  county  of  Cumberland. 
Ihe  boundaries  of  this  kingdom,  however,  are  much  disputed.     To  find  a 
way  through  the  confusion  of  texts  and  traditions  relative  to  the  religious 
and  chronological  origin  of  Great  Britain,  recourse  should  be  had  to  two 
admirable  papers,  by  a  modern  writer,  too  soon  withdrawn  from  the  ranks 
of  French  erudition,  M.  Varin,  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Sciences  at  Rennes 
which  are  to  be  found  in  the  Recueil  des  M^ioires  prdsentis  par  divers 
savants   a   V Academic  des   Inscriptions  et  Belles-lettres  (tome  v.,  first  and 
second  part,    1857,    1858).     The  first  is  entitled  Etudes  relatives  a  I'dtat 
politique  et  rehgieux  des  lies  Britanniques  au  moment  de  V Invasion  Saxonne  ; 
the  second,  Mimoire  sur  les  Causes  de  la  Dissidence  entre  VEglise  Bretonne  et 
VEglise  Romaine  relativcment  d  la  Celebration  de  la  Fete  de  Pdques.     Before 
resolving  this  last  question,  with  a  precision  and  a  perspicuity  which  permit 
us  to  follow  him  without  hesitation,  M.  Varin  guides  us  across  all  the 
meanderings  of  the  three  principal  schools,  Irish,  English,  and  Scotch, 
which  dispute  the  origin  of  the  Caledonians ;  and  which,  as  personified  in 
Usher,  Camden,  and  Innes,  have  remained  almost  unknown  to  Continental 
learning. 

He  regards  as  proved— ist.  The  identity  of  the  Picts  with  the  ancient 
Caledonians.  2nd,  The  Irish  theory,  which  makes  out  the  Scots  to  be  a 
colony  of  Hibernians,  of  Irish  origin  (probably  towards  258),  and  estab- 
lished in  Caledonia  before  the  period  of  the  infestations. 

VOL.  XL  2  B 


386         CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF   THE    BRITISH    ISLES 

of  the  Gospel  and  the  bond  of  Christian  civilisation,  which 
are  indispensable  to  their  future  grandeur  and  virtue  ? 
Shall  it  be  from  those  mountains  of  Cambria,  from  Wales, 
where  the  vanquished  race  maintains  the  sacred  fire  of  faith 
and  the  traditions  of  the  British  Church,  with  its  native 
clergy  and  monastic  institutions  ?  It  is  a  question  impos- 
sible to  solve,  without  having  thrown  a  rapid  glance  over 
the  religious  condition  of  that  picturesque  and  attractive 
country  during  the  sixth  century. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    SAINTS    AND    MONKS    OF   WALES 

The  British  refugees  in  Cambria  maintain  there  the  genius  of  the  Celtic 
race.— Testimony  rendered  to  the  virtues  of  the  Welsh  by  their 
enemy  Giraldus.— Music  and  poetry  :  the  bards  and  their  triads.— 
Devotion  to  the  Christian  faith.— King  Arthur  crowned  by  the 
Bishop  Dubricius.— Alliance  between  the  bards  and  the  monks  :  the 
bard  surprised  by  the  flood. — A  few  names  which  float  in  the  ocean 
of  legends.— Mutual  influence  of  Cambria,  Armorica,  and  Ireland  upon 
each  other  :  their  legends  identical.— The  love  of  the  Celtic  monks 
for  travel.— Foundation  of  the  episcopal  monasteries  of  St.  Asaph  by 
Kentigern,  of  LlandafE  by  Dubricius,  of  Bangor  by  Iltud,  a  converted 
bandit. — St.  David,  monk  and  bishop,  the  Benedict  of  Wales.— His 
pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  from  which  he  returns  archbishop.— The 
right  of  asylum  recognised.— He  restores  Glastonbury.— His  tomb 
becomes  the  national  sanctuary  of  Cambria.— Legend  of  St.  Cadoc 
and  his  father  and  mother.— He  founds  Llancarvan,  the  school  and 
burying-place  of  the  Cambrian  race.— His  poetical  aphorisms,  his 
vast  domains.— He  protects  the  peasants.— A  young  girl  carried  oflE 
and  restored.— Right  of  asylum  as  for  St.  Ba.vid.— The  Mate  of  Cadoc. 
— He  takes  refuge  in  Armorica,  prays  for  Virgil,  returns  to  Britain, 
and  there  perishes  by  the  sword  of  the  Saxons.— His  name  invoked  at 
the  battle  of  the  Thirty. — St.  Winifred  and  her  fountain. — St.  Beino, 
the  enemy  of  the  Saxons. — The  hatred  of  the  Cambrians  to  the  Saxons 
an  obstacle  to  the  conversion  of  the  conquerors. 

During  the  long  struggle  maintained  by  the  Britons  in 
defence  of  their  lands  and  their  independence  with  the 
Saxons,  whom  a  succession  of  invading  expeditions  brought 
like  waves  of  the  sea  upon  the  eastern  and  southern  shores 
of  the  island,  a  certain  number  of  those  who  repudiated  the 
foreign  rule  had  sought  an  asylum  in  the  western  peninsulas 
of  their  native  land,  and  especially  in  that  great  peninsular 
basin  which  the  Latins  called  Cambria,  and  which  is  now 
387 


388  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

called  Wales,  the  land  of  tlie  Gael.  This  district  seems 
intended  by  nature  to  be  the  citadel  of  England.  Bathed 
on  three  sides  by  the  sea,  defended  on  the  fourth  by  the 
Severn  and  other  rivers,  this  quadrilateral,  moreover,  con- 
tains the  highest  mountains  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
island,  and  a  crowd  of  gorges  and  defiles  inaccessible  to  the 
military  operations  of  old.  After  having  served  as  a  refuge 
to  the  Britons  oppressed  by  the  Roman  conquest,  Cambria 
resisted  the  efforts  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  for  five  centuries, 
and  even  remained  long  inaccessible  to  the  Anglo-Normans, 
whom  it  took  more  than  two  hundred  years  to  complete  in 
this  region  the  work  of  William  the  Conqueror. 

Like  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  our  own  Armorica,  this 
fine  country  has  at  all  times  been  the  object  of  lively  sym- 
pathy, not  only  among  learned  Celtomaniacs,  but  among  all 
men  whose  hearts  are  moved  by  the  sight  of  a  race  which 
makes  defeat  honourable  by  the  tenacity  of  its  resistance  to 
the  victor — and  still  more  among  all  lovers  of  that  inimit- 
able poetry  which  springs  spontaneously  from  the  traditions 
and  instincts  of  a  generous  and  unfortunate  people. 

The  unquestionable  signs  of  a  race  entirely  distinct  from 
that  which  inhabits  the  other  parts  of  England  may  still 
be  distinguished  there ; — and  there,  too,  may  be  found  a 
language  evidently  the  sister  language  of  the  three  other 
Celtic  dialects  which  are  still  in  existence — the  Breton  Ar- 
morican,  the  Irish,  and  the  Gaelic  of  the  Scottish  Highlands. 

But  it  is,  above  all,  in  the  sudden  vicissitudes  of  the 
history  of  Wales,  from  King  Arthur  to  Llewellyn,  and  in 
the  institutions  which  enabled  it  to  resist  the  foreign  in- 
vasion for  seven  centuries,  that  we  recognise  the  true 
characteristics  and  rich  nature  of  the  ancient  British  race. 
Everywhere  else  the  native  population  had  either  been 
killed,  enslaved,  or  absorbed.  But  in  this  spot,  where  it 
had  sufficient  strength  to  survive  and  flourish  along  with 
the  other  nationalities  of  the  West,  it  has  displayed  all  its 
native  worth,   bequeathing  to   us  historical,  juridical,  and 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  389 

poetical  remains,  which  prove  the  powerful  and  original 
vitality  with  which  it  was  endowed.^  By  its  soul,  by  its 
tongue,  and  by  its  blood,  the  race  has  thus  protested  against 
the  exaggerated  statements  made  by  the  Briton  Gildas,  and 
the  Saxon  Bede,  of  the  corruption  of  the  victims  of  the 
Saxon  invasion.  In  all  times  there  have  been  found  men, 
and  even  the  best  of  men,  who  thus  wrong  the  vanquished, 
and  make  history  conspire  with  fortune  to  absolve  and 
crown  the  victors.  The  turn  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  to 
come;  they  also,  when  the  Norman  invasion  had  crushed 
them,  found  a  crowd  of  pious  detractors  to  prove  that  they 
had  merited  their  fate,  and  to  absolve  and  mitigate  the 
crimes  of  the   Conquest. 

The  most  striking,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most 
attractive  feature  in  the  characteristic  history  of  the  Welsh 
is,  without  doubt,  the  ardour  of  patriotism,  the  invincible 
love  of  liberty  and  national  independence,  which  they 
evidenced  throughout  seven  centuries,  and  which  no  other 
race  has  surpassed.  We  are  specially  informed  of  these 
qualities,  even  by  the  servile  chroniclers  of  their  conquerors, 
by  the  Anglo-Norman  writers  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  from  whom  truth  extorts  the  most  unequivocal 
eulogiums.  These  writers  certainly  point  out  certain  vices, 
and  especially  certain  customs,  which  are  in  opposition  to 
the  rules  of  civilised  nations,  such  as  that  of  fighting  naked, 
like  the  Britons  of  Ceesar's  day  or  the  Picts  of  a  later  date, 
against  adversaries  armed  from  head  to  foot.  But  they 
rival  each  other  in  celebrating  the  heroic  and  unwearied 
devotion  of  the  Gael  to  their  country,  and  to  general  and 
individual  freedom ;  their  reverence  for  the  achievements 
and  memory  of  their  ancestors ;  their  love  of  war ;  their 
contempt  of  life  ;  their  charity  to  the  poor ;  their  exemplary 
temperance,  which  was  combined  with  inexhaustible  hos- 
pitality ;  and,  above  all,  their  extraordinary  valour  in  fight, 

1  See  the  excellent  work  entitled  Das  Alte  Wales,  by  Ferdinand  Walter, 
Professor  at  the  University  of  Bonn.     1859. 


390  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

and   their  obstinate    constancy   through    all    their    reverses 
,  and  disasters.'^ 

Nothing  can  give  a  better  picture  of  this  people  than 
that  decree  of  their  ancient  laws  which  interdicted  the 
seizure  by  justice,  in  the  house  of  any  Gael  whatsoever,  of 
three  specified  things — his  sword,  his  harp,  and  one  of  his 
books ;  ^  the  harp  and  the  book,  because  in  time  of  peace 
they  regarded  music  and  poetry  as  the  best  occupation  of 
an  honest  and  free  man.  Thus  from  infancy  every  Gael 
cultivated  these  two  arts,  and  especially  music,  with  pas- 
sionate and  unanimous  eagerness.  It  was  the  favourite 
form,  the  gracious  accompaniment  of  hospitality.  The 
traveller  was  everywhere  received  by  choirs  of  singers. 
From  morning  to  evening  every  house  rang  with  the  sound 
of  the  harp  and  other  instruments,  played  with  a  perfection 
which  delighted  the  foreign  hearers,  who  were  at  the  same 
time  always  struck,  amid  all  the  skilful  turns  of  musical 
art,  by  the  constant  repetition  of  sweet  and  melancholy 
chords,  which  seemed  to  reflect,  as  in  the  music  of  Ireland, 
the  candid  genius  and  cruel  destiny  of  the  Celtic  race.^ 

1  Let  us  quote  the  very  words  of  the  enemies  of  Welsh  independence  ; 
history  too  seldom  gives  us  an  opportunity  of  hearing  and  repeating  de- 
tails so  noble : — 

"  Patriae  tutelte  student  et  libertatis ;  pro  patria  pugnant,  pro  libertate 
laborant.  .  .  .  Continua  pristine  nobilitatis  memoria.  .  .  .  Tantze  auda- 
ciae  et  ferocitatis,  ut  nudi  cum  armatis  congredi  non  vereantur,  adeo  ut 
sanguinem  pro  patria  fundere  promptissime,  vitamque  velint  pro  laude 
pacisci." — GlEALDUS,  Cambrice  Descript.,  c.  8,  lo.  "In  bellico  conflictu 
primo  impetu,  acrimonia,  voce,  vultu  terribiles  tarn  .  .  .  tubarum  pras- 
longarum  clangore  altisono  quam  cursu  pernici.  .  .  ,  Gens  asperrima 
.  .  .  hodie  confecta  et  cruentam  in  fugam  turpiter  conversa,  eras  nihilo- 
minus  expeditionem  parat,  nee  damno  nee  dedecore  retardata." — GiRALD., 
De  lUaudabilibus  Wallice,  c.  3.  "Nee  crapulae  dediti  nee  temulentise 
...  in  equis  sola  et  armis  tota  versatur  intentio.  .  .  .  Vespere  coena 
sobria  :  et  si  forte  nulla  vel  minima  pars,  vesperam  alteram  patienter  ex- 
pectant. Nemo  in  hac  gente  mendicus,  omnium  hospitia  omnibus  com- 
munia." — Desc7\  Cambrice,  c.  9.  "Omnium  rerum  largissimi,  ciborum  sibi 
quisque  parcissimus." — GuALT.  Mapes,  De  Nugis  Curialium,  ii.  20. 

2  Triades  of  Dymvall  Moelraud,  54,  ap.  Walter,  p.  3J5. 

2  "Qui  matutinis  horis  adveniunt,  puellarum  affatibus  et  cytherarum 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  39 1 

The  bards  themselves,  singers  and  poets,  sometimes  even 
princes  and  warriors,  presided  over  the  musical  education  of 
the  country  as  well  as  over  its  intellectual  development. 
But  they  did  not  confine  themselves  to  song ;  they  also 
fought  and  died  for  national  independence ;  the  harp  in 
their  hands  was  often  only  the  auxiliary  of  the  sword,  and 
one  weapon  the  more  against  the  Saxon. -^ 

This  powerful  corporation,  which  was  constituted  in  a 
hierarchical  form,  had  survived  the  ruin  of  the  Druids,  and 
appeared  in  the  sixth  century  in  its  fullest  splendour  in  the 
centre  of  those  poetic  assemblies,^  presided  over  by  the  kings 
and  chiefs  of  the  country,  which  were  a  truly  national  in- 
stitution, and  continued  to  exist  until  tlie  latest  days  of 
Welsh  independence.  In  the  numerous  relics  of  their  fertile 
activity  recently  brought  to  light  by  efforts  which  are  as 
patriotic  as  intelligent,^  but  still  insufficiently  elucidated — 
in  those  triads  which,  under  the  comparatively  recent  form 
known  to  us,  disguise  but  faintly  the  highest  antiquity — 
are  to  be  found  treasures  of  true  poetry,  in  which  the  savage 
grandeur  of  a  primitive  race,  tempered  and  purified  by  the 
teachings   and  mysteries  of  the  Gospel,  seems  to  play  in  a 

modulis  usque  ad  vesperam  delectantur  :  domus  enim  hie  quselibet  puellas 
habet  ad  cytharas  ad  hoc  deputatas.  ...  In  musico  modulamine  non 
uniformiter,  ut  alibi ;  sed  multipliciter  multisque  modis  et  modulis 
cantilenas  emittunt,  adeo  ut  in  turba  canentium,  sicut  huic  genti  mos 
est,  quot  videas  capita,  tot  audias  carmina  discriminaque  vocum,  varia  in 
unam  denique  sub  B  mollis  dulcedine  blanda  consonantiam  et  organicum 
convenientia  melodiam.  ...  In  musicis  instrumentis  dulcedine  aures 
deliniunt  et  demulcent,  tanta  modulorum  celeritate,  pariter  et  subtilitate 
feruntur,  tantamque  discrepantium  sub  tarn  przecipiti  digitorum  rapiditate 
consonantiam  prjestant.  .  .  .  Semper  autem  ab  molli  incipiunt  et  in 
idem  redeunt,  ut  cuncta  sub  jucundce  sonoritatis  dulcedine  compleantur." 

— GlEALDUS  CAMBEENSIS,  C.   IO,  12,   13. 

1  A.  DE  LA  BOEDEEIE,  p.  1 79.     La  VillemAEQXJE,  Les  Bardes  Bretons. 

^  The  Eisteddvods.     An  attempt  has  been  made  to  revive  them. 

3  Those  of  Williams  ab  Jolo,  of  Williams  ab  Itbel,  of  the  two  Owens,  of 
Stephens,  of  Walter,  and,  above  all,  of  M.  de  la  Villemarque,  who  has  been 
the  first  to  open  up  to  literary  France  the  history  of  a  race  naturally  so 
dear  to  the  Bretons  of  Armorica. 


392  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

thousand  limpid  currents  which  sparkle  in  the  morning  sun- 
light of  history,  before  running  into  and  identifying  them- 
selves with  the  great  river  of  Christian  tradition  in  the  West. 

For  the  Christian  religion  was  adopted,  cherished,  and 
defended  amidst  the  mountains  of  Cambria  with  not  less 
fervour  and  passion  than  national  independence.  Kings 
and  chiefs  there  were  not  more  blameless  than  elsewhere. 
There,  too,  as  everywhere  else,  the  abuse  of  strength  and  the 
exercise  of  power  engendered  every  kind  of  crime  :  too  often 
perjury,  adultery,  and  murder  appear  in  their  annals.^  But 
at  the  same  time  faith  and  repentance  often  reclaimed  their 
rights  over  souls  not  so  much  corrupt  as  gone  astray.  In 
imitation  of  the  great  Arthur,  who  was  crowned,  according 
to  Celtic  tradition,  in  516,  by  a  holy  archbishop  called 
Dubricius,  they  almost  all  showed  themselves  zealous  for  the 
service  of  God  and  generous  to  the  Church  ;  and  the  people, 
separated  from  Rome  by  the  waves  of  blood  in  which  the 
Saxon  invasion  had  drowned  British  Christianity,  soon  dis- 
played again  that  natural  tendency  which  marked  them  out  to 
the  Norman  conquerors  as  the  most  zealous  of  all  the  pilgrims 
who  made  their  eager  way  to  the  tombs  of  the  apostles.^ 

The  bards,  though  they  had  existed  before  Christianity, 
far  from  being  hostile  to  it,  lived  in  an  intimate  and  cordial 
alliance  with  the  clergy,  and  especially  with  the  monks. 
Each  monastery  had  its  bard — at  once  poet  and  historian — 
who  chronicled  the  wars,  alliances,  and  other  events  of  the 
age.  Every  three  years  these  national  annalists,  like  the 
pontiffs  of  ancient  Rome,  assembled  to  compare  their  narra- 
tives, and  to  register  them  at  the  foot  of  the  code  of  Good 

1  See  the  numerous  examples  collected  by  Lingarcl  (Anglo-Saxon  Church, 
vol.  ii.  p.  362),  in  the  Book  of  Llamlaff,  and  other  Welsh  documents. 

2  "Prje  omni  peregrino  labore  Romam  peregre  libentius  eundo,  devotis 
mentibus  apostolorum  limina  propensius  adorant." — Cambria  Descriptio, 
p.  891,  ed.  1602.  Let  us  repeat  once  more,  that  in  none  of  the  numerous 
relics  of  Welsh  archajology  and  geography  recently  published  can  there 
be  found  the  slightest  trace  of  hostility,  either  systematic  or  temporary, 
against  the  Holy  See. 


THE   BRITISH   ISLES  393 

customs  and  ancient  liberties  of  the  country,  of  which  they 
were  the  guardians.^  It  was  in  these  monastic  schools  also 
that  the  bards  were  trained  to  poetry  and  to  music.  The 
best  known  among  them,  Taliesin,  was  educated,  like  the 
historian  Gildas,  in  the  monastery  of  Llancarvan.^ 

Let  us  here  quote  one  incident  out  of  a  hundred  which 
throws  light  upon  the  singularly  intimate  connection  exist- 
ing between  the  poetry  of  the  Welsh  bards  and  the  legends 
of  the  monastic  orders,  while  it  shows  at  the  same  time  the 
proud  intrepidity  of  the  Celtic  character.  The  father  of  the 
founder  of  the  monastery  of  Llancarvan  having  become  a 
hermit,  as  will  be  narrated  further  on,  died  in  the  odour  of 
sanctity,  and  was  buried  in  a  church,  to  which  crowds  were 
soon  attracted  by  the  miraculous  cures  accomplished.  Among 
those  crowds  came  a  bard  with  the  intention  of  making  a 
poem  in  honour  of  the  new  saint.  While  he  composed  his 
lines  a  sudden  flood  ravaged  the  surrounding  country,  and 
penetrated  even  to  the  church  itself.  All  the  neighbouring 
population  and  their  cattle  had  already  perished,  and  the 
waters  continued  to  rise.  The  bard,  while  composing  his 
poem,  took  refuge  in  the  higher  story  of  the  church,  and 
then  upon  the  roof;  he  mounted  from  rafter  to  rafter  pur- 
sued by  the  flood,  but  still  continuing  to  improvise  his  lines, 
and  drawing  from  danger  the  inspiration  which  had  been 
previously  wanting.  When  the  water  subsided,  from  the 
tomb  of  the  hermit  to  the  Severn,  there  remained  no  living 
creature  except  the  bard,  and  no  other  edifice  standing  except 
the  church  upon  which  he  had  put  together  his  heroic  strains.^ 

^  Walter,  op.  cit.,  p.  33.  Lloyd,  History  of  Cambria,  ed.  Powell,  prsf., 
p.  9- 

2  La  VillemaEQUE,  Poemes  des  Bardes  Bretons,  1850,  p.  44. 

^  "  Britannus  quidam  versificator  Britannice  versificans,  composuit  car- 
mina  a  gente  sua.  .  .  .  Nondum  eadem  finita  erant  a  compositore.  .  .  . 
Marina  undositas  contexit  campestria,  submergit  habitatores  et  asdificia  : 
equi  cum  bobus  natant  in  aqua  :  matres  tenebant  filios  prae  manibus  .  .  . 
fiunt  cadavera.  Cum  viderit  undositatem  altissimam  imminere,  suscepit 
componere  quartam  partem  carminum.  Dum  incepisset,  impleta  est 
fluctibus  :  post  hsec  ascendit  trabes  superius,  et  secutus  est  iterum  tumens 


394  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

In  this  sea  of  Celtic  legend,  where  neither  fables  nor 
anachronisms  are  sufficient  to  obscure  the  vigorous  and  con- 
stant affirmation  of  Catholic  faith  and  British  patriotism, 
a  few  names  of  monastic  founders  and  missionaries  still 
survive.  They  have  been  rescued  from  forgetfulness  not 
only  by  the  revived  learning  of  Cambrian  archgeologists,  but 
also  by  faithful  popular  tradition,  even  after  the  complete 
and  lamentable  extinction  of  Catholicism  in  Wales/  While 
surveying  their  lives,  and  examining  the  general  scope  of 
the  monastic  legends  and  institutions  connected  with  them, 
the  existence  of  a  double  influence  which  attracts  the  looks 
and  steps  of  the  Gael  from  their  native  mountains  to  Ar- 
morica  in  the  south,  and  to  Ireland  in  the  west,  becomes 
immediately  apparent ;  as  is  also  the  constant  reflux  of  these 
two  countries  back  upon  Great  Britain,  from  whence  had  come 
their  first  missionaries,  and  the  religious  and  national  life 
of  which  had  concentrated  itself  more  and  more  in  Cambria. 

The  Saxon  invasion,  as  has  been  already  seen,  had 
thrown  upon  the  shores  of  Gaul  a  crowd  of  fugitives,  who, 
transformed  into  missionaries,  had  created  a  new  Britain, 
invincibly  Christian  and  Catholic,  at  the  gates  of  Merovin- 
gian France.    The  most  celebrated  among  these  missionaries, 

fluctus  tertio  super  tectum,  nee  cessat  ille  fungi  laudibus.  lUis  finitis 
Britannus  poeta  evasit,  domus  fulciens  stabilivit." — Vita  S.  Gundleii,  c.  ii, 
ap.  Rees,  p.  15. 

^  See  the  important  publication  entitled  Lives  of  the  Gamhro- British 
Saints  of  the  Fifth  and  immediate  successive  Centuries,  from  ancient  Welsh  and 
Latin  MSS.,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Rees,  Llandovery,  1853  ;  a  work  to  which 
nothing  is  wanting  except  a  historical  and  geographical  commentary, 
adapted  for  foreign  readers.  It  is  entirely  distinct  from  the  Essay  on  the 
Welsh  Saints,  by  the  Rev.  Rice  Rees,  so  much  praised  by  Walter,  but  which 
I  have  not  been  able  to  meet  with.  The  biographies  published  by  Rees, 
from  the  MS.  in  the  Cottonian  Library,  are  partly  in  Welsh  and  partly 
in  Latin  ;  they  must  have  been,  not  written,  but  certainly  retouched  at  a 
later  period  than  that  to  which  in  the  first  place  one  is  tempted  to  attri- 
bute them.  By  the  side  of  details  evidently  contemporary  and  local  are 
to  be  found  traces  of  declamatory  interpolations,  which  must  have  been 
the  work  of  a  posterity  much  less  devoted  than  we  are  to  local  colour  and 
historical  authenticity. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  395 

Tugdual,  Samson,  Malo,  and  Paul  Aurelian,  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  Cambrian  monasteries,  from  whence  also  the 
historian  Gildas  and  the  bard  Taliesin  accompanied  them 
beyond  the  seas.  From  the  earliest  days  of  her  conversion 
Ireland  had  received  a  similar  emigration.  The  greater 
part  of  these  pious  and  brave  missionaries  came  back  once 
at  least  in  their  lives  to  visit  the  country  which  they  had 
left,  leading  with  them  disciples,  born  in  other  Celtic  lands, 
but  eager  to  carry  back  to  the  dear  and  much-threatened 
homes  of  insular  Britain  the  light  and  fervour  which  had 
first  been  received  from  them.''  Thence  arises  the  singular 
uniformity  of  proper  names,  traditions,  miracles,  and  anec- 
dotes, among  the  legends  of  the  three  countries,  a  uniformity 
which  has  often  degenerated  into  inextricable  confusion. 

One  particular,  however,  which  imprints  a  uniform  and 
very  distinct  character  upon  all  the  holy  monks  of  Celtic 
origin,  is  their  extraordinary  love  for  distant  and  frequent 
journeys — and  it  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  modern 
English  resemble  them  most.  At  that  distant  age,  in  the 
midst  of  barbarian  invasions,  and  of  the  local  disorganisa- 
tion of  the  Eoman  world,  and  consequently  in  the  face  of 
obstacles  which  nothing  in  Europe  as  it  now  exists  can  give 
the  slightest  idea  of,  they  are  visible,  traversing  immense 
distances,  and  scarcely  done  with  one  laborious  pilgrimage 
before  they  begin  again  or  undertake  another.  The  journey 
to  Kome,  or  even  to  Jerusalem,  which  finds  a  place  in  the 
legend  of  almost  every  Cambrian  or  Irish  saint,  seems  to 
have  been  sport  to  them.  St.  Kentigern,  for  example,  went 
seven  times  in  succession  to  Rome.^ 

This  same  Kentigern,  whom  we  shall  meet  again  hereafter 
as  the  missionary  bishop  of  the  southern  Scots  and  Picts,  is 
said  to   have  been  born  of  one  of  those  irregular    unions 

1  "  Sicut  hiemale  alvearium,  arridente  vere,  animos  extollens  .  .  .  aliud 
foras  emittit  examen,  ut  alibi  mellificet,  ita  Letavia  (the  ancient  name  of 
Armorica),  accrescente  serenitate  religionis,  catervam  sanctorum  ad  origi- 
nem  unde  exierunt,  transmittit." — Vit.  S.  Paterni,  aip.  Rees,  Cambro- British 
Saints.  ^  Act.  SS.  Bollakd.,  t.  i.  January,  p.  S19. 


39^  CHRISTIAN    OEIGIN    OF 

which  evidence  either  domestic  derangement  or  the  abuse 
of  power  among  the  chiefs  and  great  men  of  the  country, 
and  which  are  so  often  referred  to  in  the  annals  of  Celtic 
hagiography/  He  was  none  the  less  one  of  the  principal 
monastic  personages  in  Cambria,  where  he  founded,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Clwyd  ^  and  Elwy,  an  immense  monastery, 
inhabited  by  nine  hundred  and  sixty-five  monks,  three 
hundred  of  whom,  being  illiterate,  cultivated  the  fields ; 
three  hundred  worked  in  the  interior  of  the  monastery ;  and 
the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  others  celebrated  divine 
worship  without  interruption.^  This  monastery  became  at 
the  same  time  an  episcopal  see,  which  still  exists  under  the 
name  of  St.  Asaph,  the  successor  of  Kentigern.'* 

This  was  not,  however,  either  the  oldest  or  most  important 
monastic  colony  of  Cambria,  where,  as  in  Saxon  England, 
every  bishopric  was  cradled  in  a  monastery.  More  than 
a  century  before  Kentigern,  Dubricius,  whose  long  life,  if 
tradition  is  to  be  believed,  made  him  the  contemporary  of 
Patrick  and  Palladius  as  well  as  of  King  Arthur,  is  instanced 
as  the  first  founder  of  a  great  monastic  centre  in  Cambria, 
from  which  religious  colonies  swarmed  off  continually  to 
Armorica  and  to  Ireland.  Dubricius  was  ordained  bishop  at 
Llandaff  in  the  south  of  Wales  by  St.  Germain  of  Auxerre, 

^  "  Matrem  habuit  Pictorum  regis  filiam.  .  .  .  Ea  seu  vi  compressa,  seu 
dolo,  a  nobili  adolescente  cum  uterum  gereret,  auctorem  prodere  .  .  . 
pertinenter  fertur  recusasse.  .  .  .  Plurium  ex  eadem  Scottorum  ac  Britan- 
norum  gente  sanctorum  par  ortus  narratur,  FursEei,  Davidis,"  &c. — BOL- 
LAND.,  p.  815. 

2  This  is  the  Clwyd  of  Wales  and  not  the  Clyde  at  Glasgow  where  St. 
Kentigern  was  bishop.  There  are  also  two  rivers  Dee — one  in  Wales  and 
one  in  Scotland — which  occasions  a  confusion  of  which  it  is  well  to  be 
warned. 

3  BOLLAND.,  p.  819.     This  monastery  was  at  first  called  Llan-Elwy. 

4  Each  tribe,  every  little  princedom  of  Wales,  had  its  bishopric.  Llan- 
daff for  the  Silurians,  Menevia  (afterwards  St.  David's)  for  the  Demotes, 
&c.  There  was  one  also  at  Margam,  which  afterwards  became  a  celebrated 
Cistercian  abbey.  The  ruins,  enclosed  and  preserved  with  care  in  the 
splendid  residence  of  a  branch  of  the  house  of  Talbot,  are  well  worthy  of 
being  visited  and  admired. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  397 

and  ended  his  career  in  the  north  as  a  hermit,  after  having 
assembled  at  one  period  more  than  a  thousand  auditors 
round  his  pulpit.  Among  these  the  most  illustrious  were 
Iltud  and  David. 

Iltud,  or  Eltut,  who  was  also  a  disciple  of  St.  Germain, 
founded  the  great  monastery  of  Bangor  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Dee,  which  became  a  centre  of  missionary  enterprise,  as 
well  as  of  political  resistance  to  the  foreign  conquerors  ;  it 
was  reckoned  to  consist  of  seven  divisions,  each  of  three 
hundred  monks,  who  all  lived  by  the  labour  of  their  hands. 
It  was  a  veritable  army,  yet  still  a  half  less  than  that  of  the 
four  thousand  monks  of  the  other  Bangor,^  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Channel,  in  Ireland,  which  was  destined  to  be  the 
cradle  of  St.  Columbanus  and  St.  Gall,  the  monastic  apostles 
of  eastern  France  and  of  Switzerland.^  Iltud  was  born  in 
Armorica,  but  his  curious  legend,  some  touching  details  of 
which  our  readers  will  thank  us  for  quoting,  records  that  he 
was  attracted  to  Wales  by  the  fame  of  his  cousin,  King 
Arthur.  He  began  his  life  there  as  a  man  of  war  and  of 
rapine ;  but  he  was  converted  while  hawking  by  the  sight 
of  a  catastrophe  which  befell  his  companions,  who,  at  the 
moment  when  they  had  extorted  from  the  holy  abbot  Cadoc, 
the  founder  of  Llancarvan,  fifty  loaves,  a  measure  of  beer, 
and  a  fat  pig,  to  satisfy  their  hunger,  were  swallowed  up  by 
the  earth,  which  opened  under  their  feet.  Iltud,  terrified  by 
this  lesson,  and  counselled  by  the  abbot  Cadoc,  consecrated 
himself  to  the  service  of  God  in  solitude,  even  although  he 
was  married  and  dearly  loved  his  young  and  beautiful  wife. 
At  first,  she  desired  to  accompany  him  and  share  with  him 

^  There  was,  besides,  a  third  Bangor  or  Banchor,  which  is  the  existing 
bishopric  of  that  title,  and  was  also  founded  by  a  disciple  of  Dubricius, 
the  holy  abbot  Daniel,  who  died  about  548.  This  little  episcopal  see, 
situated  on  the  sea-coast,  in  the  county  of  Caernarvon,  has  often  been 
confounded  with  the  great  monastery  of  the  same  name  which  was  in 
Flintshire,  on  the  banks  of  the  Dee.  Ban-gor,  which  is  interpreted  to 
mean  magnus  circulus,  seems,  besides,  to  have  been  a  sort  of  generic  name 
for  monastic  congregations  or  enclosures. 

^  See  ante,  p.  250. 


398  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

tlie  hut  of  branches  which  he  had  built  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tave,  in  Gloucestei'shire.  "  What ! "  said  an  angel  who 
appeared  to  him  in  a  dream ;  "  thou  also  art  enthralled  by 
the  love  of  a  woman  ?  Certainly  thy  wife  is  beautiful,  but 
chastity  is  more  beautiful  still."  Obedient  to  that  voice,  he 
abandoned  his  wife,  and  at  the  same  time  his  horses  and 
followers,  buried  himself  in  a  deep  wood,  and  there  built  an 
oratory  which  the  number  of  his  disciples  soon  changed  into 
a  convent.  He  divided  his  life  between  great  agricultural 
labours  and  frequent  struggles  with  the  robber-kings  and 
chiefs  of  the  neighbourhood.  He  distinguished  himself 
specially  by  constructing  immense  dykes  against  the  floods 
from  which  Wales  seems  to  have  suffered  so  much.  His 
wife  pursued  him  even  into  this  new  solitude ;  but  when  she 
discovered  him  at  the  bottom  of  a  ditch  which  he  was  him- 
self digging,  with  his  body  and  face  covered  with  mud,  she 
saw  that  it  was  no  longer  her  fair  knight  of  other  days,  and 
thenceforward  gave  up  visiting  him,  lest  she  should  displease 
God  and  the  friend  of  God.  Later  in  his  life  he  shut  him- 
self up  in  a  cave  where  he  had  only  the  cold  stones  for  his 
bed.  He  took  delight  in  this  solitary  lair  for  four  long  years, 
and  left  it  only  twice,  to  protect  his  monastery  against  vio- 
lence and  robbery.  He  died  at  Dol,  in  that  Armorica  which 
he  had  always  loved,  and  where  he  took  pleasure  in  sending 
in  times  of  famine,  to  help  his  Breton  countrymen  beyond 
seas,  shiploads  of  grain  which  were  provided  by  the  labours 
of  his  Welsh  community.-^ 

1  "  Princeps  militias  et  tribunus  .  .  .  miles  olim  celeberrimus.  .  .  .  Acci- 
pitrem  per  volatiles  instigabat.  .  .  .  Astabat  angelus  ammonens  :  Te  quoque 
muliebris  amor  occupat .  .  .  uxor  est  decora  sed  castimonia  est  melior.  .  .  . 
Uxore  coDsociante  et  armigeris  .  .  .  composnit  tegmen  ex  arundineto  ut 
non  plueret  super  lectum.  .  .  .  Mulier  licet  induta  finxit  se  frigescere  cum 
tremulo  pectore,  quatenus  posset  in  lecto  denuo  collateralis  jacere.  .  .  . 
Operatusest  immensam  fossam  limo  et  lapidibus  mixtam,  quam  retruderet 
irruentem  undam.  .  .  .  Ubi  operosum  vidit  fossorem  per  assidua  fossura 
lutulentum  perfaciens  .  .  .  inquisivit  ab  eo  suave  colloquium.  .  .  .  Con- 
spexit  ilia  vilem  habitum  .  .  .  non  sicut  antea  viderat  militem  speciosum. 
.  .  .  Remansit  itaque  .  .  .  nunquam  amplius  visitans  eum,  quae  nolebat 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  399 

David  is  much  more  generally  known  than  his  co-disciple, 
Iltut.  He  has  always  continued  popular  among  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Wales ;  and  Shakespeare  informs  us  that,  even  since 
the  Reformation,  the  Welsh  have  retained  the  custom  of  wear- 
ing a  leek  in  their  hats  upon  his  feast-day.-^  His  history 
has  been  often  written,^  and  through  the  transformation  of 
the  legend  it  is  still  easy  to  recognise  in  it  the  salutary  sway 
of  a  great  monk  and  bishop  over  souls  which  were  faithful 
to  religion,  but  yet  in  full  conflict  with  those  savage  and 
sensual  impulses  which  are  to  be  found  only  too  universally 
among  all  men  and  all  nations,  in  the  centre  of  civilisation 
as  on  the  verge  of  barbarism.     The  origin,  indeed,  of  the 

displicere  Deo  et  Dei  dilectissimo.  .  .  .  Tota  nocte  jacebat  super  frigidam 
petram  .  .  .  quasi  diceret  : 

"  Hoc  lapis  in  lecto  positns  sub  pectore  nostro, 
Hec  mea  dulcedo  :  jaceam  pro  Numine  summo. 
Mollis  erit  merces  ventura  beata  beato, 
Que  manet  in  coelo  michi  debita,  quando  redibo." 

—  Vita  S.  Iltuti,  Kees,  pp.  45,  161-182. 
1  <i  Pistol.  Art  thou  of  Cornish  crew  ? 
King  Henky.  No,  I'm  a  Welshman. 
Pistol.  Knowest  thou  Fluellen  ? 
King.  Yes. 

Pistol.  Tell  him  I'll  knock  his  leek  about  his  pate 
Upon  St.  Davy's  day." 

And  afterwards : — 

"  Fluellen.  I  do  believe  your  majesty  takes  no  scorn 
To  wear  the  leek  upon  St.  Davy's  day. 

King.  I  wear  it  for  a  memorable  honour  : 
For  I  am  Welsh,  you  know,  good  countryman." 

—King  Henry  V. 
"  Notably  by  an  anonymous  writer,  of  whose  work  the  Franciscan 
Colgan  has  published  a  first  version  in  his  Acta  Sanctorum  Hibernice,  vol.  i. 
Ricemarch,  the  successor  of  David  as  Bishop  of  Menevia  towards  1085, 
gave  a  much  more  complete  version  of  this  first  biography,  which  has  been 
published  by  Rees  in  his  Lives  of  Camhro- British  Saints.  Another  of  his 
successors,  the  famous  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  has  also  written  a  life  of  St. 
David,  which  may  be  found  in  Wharton's  Anglia  Sacra,  vol.  ii.  The  date 
and  duration  of  his  life  is,  however,  very  uncertain  :  according  to  Usserius 
he  lived  between  472  and  554  ;  according  to  the  BoUandists,  between  447 
and  544 ;  according  to  other  authorities,  between  484  and  566. 


400  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

holy  patron  of  Cambria  himself,  like  that  of  St.  Bridget, 
the  patroness  of  Ireland,  affords  a  startling  proof  of  a  state 
of  affairs  both  corrupt  and  violent.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
nun  whom  the  king  of  the  country — a  nephew  of  the  great 
Arthur — met  upon  the  public  road,  and  whom,  struck  by 
her  beauty,  he  instantly  made  the  victim  of  his  passion.^ 
This  crime  is  told  by  all  the  biographers  of  David,  generally 
so  lavish  of  praise  and  blame,  without  the  least  expression 
of  surprise  or  indignation.  The  scribe  Paulinus,  whose 
name  indicates  a  Roman  origin,  and  who  is  known  to  have 
been  a  disciple  of  St.  Germain  of  Auxerre,  was  charged  with 
the  education  of  the  young  David,  which  was  as  long  and 
complete  as  possible.^  He  issued  from  his  tutor's  hands 
clothed  with  the  priesthood,  and  devoted  to  a  kind  of 
monastic  existence  which  did  not  exclude  him  either  from 
Continental  travel,  nor  from  exercising  a  great  influence 
over  men  and  external  affairs.  He  exercised  a  double 
power  over  his  countrymen,  by  directing  one  part  to  ceno- 
bitical  life,  and  arming  the  other  with  the  knowledge  and 
virtue  which  enabled  them  to  triumph  over  the  dangers  of 
a  secular  career.  It  is  on  this  latter  point  that  he  differs 
from  his  illustrious  contemporary,  St.  Benedict,  whom  he 
resembles  in  so  many  other  features.  Like  Benedict,  he 
founded,  almost  at  one  time,  twelve  monasteries ;  like  Bene- 
dict, he  saw  his  young  disciples  tempted  to  their  fall  by 
the  voluptuous  wiles  of  shameless  women ;  like  Benedict, 
he  was  exposed  to  the  danger  of  being  poisoned  by  traitors 
in  the  very  bosom  of  his  own  community  ;  ^  and,  finally,  like 

1  "  Invenit  rex  obviam  sibi  sanctam  monialem,  Nonnitam  virginem, 
puellam  pulchram  nimis  et  decoram,  quam,  concupiscens  tetigit  vi  op- 
pressam."— RiCEMAECH,  ed.  Rees,  p.  119.  "In  quam  ut  oculos  injecit, 
in  cupidinem  ejus  medullitus  exardens,  statim  equo  dilapsus,  virgineis 
amplexibus  est  delectatus." — Giraldus,  p.  629. 

"  "  Quique  eum  docuit  in  tribus  partibus  lectionis,  donee  f  uit  scriba ; 
mansit  ibi  multis  annis  legendo,  implendoque  quod  legebat."— RlCE- 
MABCH,  p.  122. 

3  "  Convocatis  ancillis :  Ite,  inquit  uxor  satrapse,  ad  flumen  Alum, 
et,  nudatis   corporibus,   in  conspectu   sanctorum  ludite.    .    .   .    Ancillse 


THE   BRITISH   ISLES  40I 

Benedict,  he  imposed  upon  his  monks  a  rule  which  severely 
prohibited  all  individual  property,  and  made  manual  and  in- 
tellectual labour  obligatory.  The  agricultural  labour  thus 
prescribed  was  so  severe,  that  the  Welsh  monks  had  not 
only  to  saw  the  wood  and  delve  the  soil,  but  even  to  yoke 
themselves  to  the  plough,  and  work  without  the  aid  of  oxen. 
As  soon  as  this  toil  came  to  an  end  they  returned  to  their 
cells  to  pass  the  rest  of  the  day  in  reading  and  writing  ;  and 
when  thus  engaged  it  was  sometimes  necessary  to  stop  in 
the  midst  of  a  letter  or  paragraph,  to  answer  to  the  first 
sound  of  the  bell,  by  which  divine  service  was  announced/ 

In  the  midst  of  these  severe  labours  the  abbot  David  had 
continual  struggles  with  the  satraps  and  magicians,  which, 
no  doubt,  means  the  chiefs  of  the  clan  and  the  Druids,  who 
had  not  been  destroyed  in  Britain,  as  in  Gaul,  by  the  Roman 
conquest,^  and  whose  last  surviving  representatives  could 
not  see,  without  violent  dislike,  the  progress  of  monastic 
institutions.  But  the  sphere  of  David's  influence  and 
activity  was  to  extend  far  beyond  that  of  his  early  work. 
Having  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  he  returned 
thence  invested   with  the  oflSce  of  archbishop,  which   had 

obediunt  .  .  .  impudicos  exercent  ludos  .  .  .  concubitus  simulant  blandos 
.  .  .  monachoram  mentes  quorumdam  ad  libidines  protrahunt,  quorum- 
dam  molestant.  Cuncti  vero  discipuli  ejus  dixerunt  David  :  Fugiamus 
ex  hoc  loco,  quia  non  possumus  hie  habitare  propter  molestiam  mulier- 
cularum  malignantium.  Diaconus  qui  pani  ministrare  consuluerat,  panem 
veneno  confectum  mensa  imponit,  cui  coquus  et  ceconomusconsenserant." 

— RiCBMAECH,  pp.   125-31. 

1  "Pede  manuque  laborant,  jugum  ponunt  in  humero,  suffossarias 
verangasque  invicto  brachio  terre  defigunt,  sarculos  serrasque  ad  suc- 
cidendum  Sanctis  ferunt  manibus.  .  .  .  Bourn  nulla  ad  arandura  cura 
introducitur.  Quisque  sibi  et  fratribus  diviti^,  quisque  et  bos.  .  .  . 
Peracto  rurali  opere,  totam  ad  vesperam  pervagabant  diem  aut  legend© 
aut  scribendo  aut  orando  .  .  .  vespere  cum  nole  pulsus  audiebatur, 
quisquis  studium  detexebat,  si  enim  auribus  cujuscumque  pulsus  reson- 
aret,  scripto  tunc  litere  apice  vel  etiam  dimidia  ejusdem  litere,  figura 
citius  assurgentes  .  .  .  ecclesiam  petunt,  earn  incompletam  dimitte- 
bant. — RiCEMABCH,  p.  127.  I  quote  literally  the  Latin  of  Ricemarch, 
which  is  often  very  singular.     Further  on  he  adds  Greek  after  his  fashion. 

2  DCELLINGER,  Heidenthum  und  Judenthum,  p.  61 1. 

VOL.  IL  2  C 


402  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN    OF 

been  conferred  upon  him  by  the  patriarch  of  Jerusalem,^ 
On  his  return  he  was  acknowledged  metropolitan  of  all  that 
part  of  the  island  not  yet  invaded  by  the  Saxons,  by  two 
very  numerously  attended  councils,^  in  which  he  had  the 
honour  of  striking  a  deathblow  at  the  Pelagian  heresy,  which 
had  come  to  life  again  since  the  mission  of  St.  Germain. 

One  of  these  councils  recognised  in  his  honour  a  right 
of  asylum,  pointed  out  by  ancient  authors  as  the  most  re- 
spected and  the  most  complete  which  existed  in  Britain,  and 
which  created  for  all  pursued  culprits  an  inviolable  refuge 
wherever  there  was  a  field  which  had  been  given  to  David.^ 
This  is  one  of  the  first  examples,  as  conferred  upon  a 
monastic  establishment,  of  that  right  of  asylum,  afterwards 
too  much  extended,  and  disgracefully  abused  towards  the 
end  of  the  middle  ages,  but  which,  at  that  far-distant 
period,  was  a  most  important  protection  to  the  weak. 
Who  does  not  understand  how  irregular  and  brutal  was 
at   that   time  the    pursuit  of  a   criminal ;    how   many  vile 

^  Compare  Bolland.,  Act.  SS.,  Martii,  t.  i.  p.  40. 

^  At  Treves  in  519,  and  at  Victoria  in  526.  The  expressions  of  Kice- 
march  upon  this  last  synod  are  worthy  of  remark,  since  they  prove  the 
presence  of  abbots  beside  the  bishops  of  the  council,  and  the  undisputed 
recognition  of  Roman  authority.  It  remains  to  be  ascertained,  however, 
whether  this  writer  of  the  eleventh  century  did  not  attribute  the  customs 
of  his  own  time  to  a  previous  age.  "  Alia  synodus  ...  in  qua  collecta 
episcoporum,  sacerdotum,  abatum  turba  .  .  .  cunctorum  consensu  .  .  . 
omnium  ordinum  totius  Britannise  gentis  archiepiscopus  constitutus.  .  .  . 
Ex  his  duabus  synodis  omnes  nostras  patrife  ecclesise  modum  et  regulam 
Romana  auctoritate  receperunt. " 

2  "Dederuntque  universi  episcopi  manus  et  monarchiam,  et  hragmi- 
nationem  David  agio,  et  consenserunt  omnes  licitum  esse  refugium  ejus 
ut  daret  illud  omni  stupro  et  homicide  et  peccatori,  omnique  maligno 
fugienti  de  loco  ad  locum  pro  omni  sancto  ac  regibus  et  hominibus  totius 
Britannias  insulse  in  omni  regno,  et  in  unaquaque  regione  in  qua  sit  ager 
consecratus  David  agio.  Et  nulli  reges  neque  seniores,  neque  satrapse, 
sed  neque  episcopi  principesve  ac  sancti  audeant  prse  David  agio  refugium 
dare  ;  ipse  vero  refugium  ducit  ante  unumquemque  hominem,  et  nemo 
ante  ipsum,  quia  ipse  est  caput  et  previus  ac  bragmaticus  omnibus  Brit- 
tonibus.  Et  statuerunt  omnes  sancti  anathema  esset  et  maledictum, 
quisquis  non  servaverit  illud  decretum  scilicet  refugium  sancti  David." — 
RiCEMAECH,  p.  140. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  403 

and  violent  passions  usurped  the  office  of  the  law  ;  and 
how  justice  herself  and  humanity  had  reason  to  rejoice 
when  religion  stretched  her  maternal  hands  over  a  fugi- 
tive unjustly  accused,  or  even  over  a  culprit  who  might  be 
worthy  of  excuse  or  indulgence ! 

David  immediately  resumed  his  monastic  and  ecclesiastical 
foundations/  and  restored  for  the  first  time  from  its  ruins 
the  Church  of  Glastonbury,  so  that  it  might  consecrate  the 
tomb  of  his  cousin  King  Arthur.^  He  himself  died  more 
than  a  hundred  years  old,  surrounded  by  the  reverence  of 
all,  and  in  reality  the  chief  of  the  British  nation.^  He  was 
buried  in  the  monastery  of  Menevia,  which  he  had  built  at 
the  southern  extremity  of  Wales,  facing  Ireland,  on  a  site 
which  had  been  indicated  thirty  years  before  by  St.  Patrick, 
the  apostle  of  that  island.  It  was  of  all  his  foundations  the 
one  most  dear  to  him,  and  he  had  made  it  the  seat  of  a 
diocese  which  has  retained  his  name. 

After  his  death  the  monastic  tomb  of  the  great  bishop 
and  British  chief  became  a  much-frequented  place  of  pil- 
grimage. Not  only  the  Welsh,  Bretons,  and  Irish  came  to 
it  in  crowds,  but  three  Anglo-Norman  kings — William  the 
Conqueror,  Henry  II.,  and  Edward  I. — appeared  there  in 
their  turn.  David  was  canonised  by  Pope  Calistus  II.  in 
1 1 20,  at  a  period  when  Wales  still  retained  its  independence. 
He  became  from  that  moment,  and  has  remained  until  the 
present  time,  the  patron  of  Cambria,  A  group  of  half-ruined 
religious  buildings,  forming  altogether  one  of  the  most 
solemn  and  least  visited  relics  of  Europe,  still  surrounds  the 
ancient  cathedral  which  bears  his  name,  and  crowns  the 
imposing  promontory,  thrust  out  into  the  sea  like  an  eagle's 
beak,  from  the  south-eastern  corner  of  the  principality  of 
Wales,  which  is  still  more  deserving  than  the  two  analogous 

^  "  Per  cuncta  totius  patriae  loca  monasteria  construxere  fratres  .  .  . 
quanta  monachorum  examina  seminavit." 

2  RiCEMAECH,  p.  125  ;   DUGDALE,  t.  i.  pp.  I-7  ;  BOLLAND.,  loc.  cit. 

2  "  Omnis  Britanniae  gentis  caput  et  patriae  honor." — Rees,  p.  140. 


404  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN   OF 

headlands    of    Cornwall    and    Armorica,    of    the    name   of 
Finisterre.^ 

Immediately  after  the  period  occupied  in  the  annals  of 
Cambria  by  King  Arthur  and  the  monk-bishop  David, 
another  monastic  and  patriotic  saint  becomes  visible,  who, 
like  his  predecessor,  remained  long  popular  among  the 
Britons  of  Wales,  and  is  so  still  among  the  Bretons  of 
Armorica.  This  was  St.  Cadoc  or  Kadok,  a  personage  re- 
garding whom  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  make  an  exact 
distinction  between  history  and  legend,  but  whose  life  has 
left  so  profound  an  impression  upon  the  Celtic  races,  that 
we  may  be  permitted  to  borrow  from  it  certain  details, 
which  will  set  in  a  clear  light  the  faith  and  manners  of 
these  races  and  of  that  age.^  His  father,  Gundliew  or  Guen- 
Liou,  surnamed  the  Warrior,  one  of  the  petty  kings  of 
southern  Cambria,  having  heard  much  of  the  beauty  of  the 
daughter  of  a  neighbouring  chief,  bad  her  carried  off,  by  a 
band  of  three  hundred  vassals,  from  the  midst  of  her  sisters, 
and  from  the  door  of  her  own  chamber,  in  her  father's 
castle.^  The  father  hastened  to  the  rescue  of  his  daughter 
with  all  his  vassals  and  allies,  and  soon  overtook  Guen-Liou, 
who  rode  with  the  young  princess  at  the  croup,  going  softly 
not  to  fatigue  her.  It  was  not  an  encounter  favourable  for 
the  lover :  two  hundred  of  his  followers  perished,  but  he 
himself  succeeded  in  escaping  safely  with  the  lady,  whose 
attractions  he  had  afterwards  to  conceal  from  the  passion  of 
King  Arthur ;  *  for  that  great  king  is  far  from  playing  in  all 

1  A  group  of  rocks  near  this  promontory  is  still  called  The  Bishop  and  his 
Clerks.  It  lies  a  little  way  to  the  north  of  the  celebrated  Roads  of  Milford 
Haven  and  the  great  dockyard  of  the  English  navy  at  Pembroke. 

2  Vita  S.  Cadoci,  ap.  Rees,  op.  cit.,  pp.  22-96  ;  Heksart  de  LA  VlLLE- 
MAKQUE,  La  Legende  Celtique,  pp.  127-227, 

3  Talgarth,  nine  miles  from  the  town  of  Brecknock.  The  name  of  the 
beautiful  princess  was  Gwladys,  in  Latin  Gladusa,  and  that  of  her  father 
Brychan  or  Brachan. 

^  "  Puellam  eleganti  quidem  specie,  sed  et  forma  valde  decoram.  .  .  . 
Virginem  ante  conclavis  suse  januam  cum  ipsius  sororibus  sedentem  pudi- 
cisque  sermonibus  vacantem  .  .  .   statim   vi   capientes  obstinate   cursu 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  405 

the  monastic  legends  the  chivalric  and  disinterested  part 
afterwards  attributed  to  him  by  the  host  of  national  and 
European  traditions  of  which  he  is  the  hero.  Of  this  rude 
warrior  and  his  beautiful  princess  was  to  be  born  the  saint 
who  has  been  called  the  Doctor  of  the  Cambrian  race,  and 
who  founded  the  great  monastic  establishment  which  has 
been  already  mentioned  here.  The  very  night  of  his  birth 
the  soldiers,  or,  to  speak  more  justly,  the  robber- followers 
(latrones),  of  the  king  his  father,  who  had  been  sent  to  pil- 
lage the  neighbours  right  and  left,  stole  the  milch  cow  of  a 
holy  Irish  monk,  who  had  no  sustenance,  he  nor  his  twelve 
disciples,  except  the  abundant  milk  of  this  cow.  When 
informed  of  this  nocturnal  theft,  the  monk  got  up,  put  on 
his  shoes  in  all  haste,  and  hurried  to  reclaim  his  cow  from 
the  king,  who  was  still  asleep.  The  latter  took  advantage 
of  the  occasion  to  have  his  new-born  son  baptized  by  the 
pious  solitary,  and  made  him  promise  to  undertake  the 
education  and  future  vocation  of  the  infant.  The  Irish- 
man gave  him  the  name  of  Cadoc,  which  in  Celtic  means 
warlike ;  and  then,  having  recovered  his  cow,  went  back 
to  his  cell  to  await  the  king's  son,  who  was  sent  to  him 
at  the  age  of  seven,  having  already  learned  to  hunt  and  to 
fight.^ 

The  young  prince  passed  twelve  years  with  the  Irish 
monk,  whom  he  served,  lighting  his  fire  and  cooking  his 
food,  and  who  taught  him  grammar  according  to  Priscian  and 

regrediuntur  .  .  .  Gundlaus  .  .  .  jussit  puellam  afPerri  .  .  .  baud  fugiendo, 
sed  pedetentim  secum  gestans  adolescentulam  in  equo.  .  .  .  Ubi  corpore 
incolumis  cum  prsenotata  virgine  ,  .  .  terminos  sua;  terrse  attigisset  .  .  . 
ecce  Arthurus  :  .  .  .  Scitote  me  vehementer  in  concupiscentiam  puellse 
hujus  quam  ille  miles  equitando  devehit  accendi." — Vita  S.  Cadoci,  ap. 
Rees,  p.  23. 

1  "  Satellites  suos  saepius  ad  rapinam  et  latrocinia  instigabat.  .  .  .  Qui- 
dam  ex  Gundleii  latronibus  ad  quoddam  oppidum  .  .  .  furandi  causa  per- 
venerunt,  quos  prenotatus  Gundleius  rex  fures  diligebat,  eosque  ssepius 
ad  latrocinia  instigabat.  .  .  .  Surge  velociter  .  .  .  et  calcia  caligas  tuas, 
nam  bos  tua  a  furibus  exstat  ablata  ...  ad  triclinium  in  quo  dormierat 
rex  .  .  .  adepta  prsedicta  bove." — Rees,  pp.  85,  25,  27. 


406  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

Donatus/  Preferring  the  life  of  a  recluse  to  the  throne  of 
his  father,  he  went  to  Ireland  for  three  years,  to  carry  on  his 
education  at  Lismore,  a  celebrated  monastic  school,  after 
which  be  returned  to  Cambria,  and  continued  his  studies 
under  a  famous  British  rhetorician,  newly  arrived  from  Italy, 
who  taught  Latin  and  the  liberal  arts  after  the  best  Roman 
system,^  This  doctor  had  more  pupils  than  money  :  famine 
reigned  in  his  school.  One  day  poor  Cadoc,  who  fasted 
continually,  was  learning  his  lesson  in  his  cell,  seated  before 
a  little  table,  and  leaning  his  head  on  his  hands,  when 
suddenly  a  white  mouse,  coming  out  of  a  hole  in  the  wall, 
jumped  on  the  table,  and  put  down  a  grain  of  corn;  but 
being  unable  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  student,  she 
returned  with  a  second  and  third  grain,  and  continued  until 
seven  grains  lay  before  his  eyes.  Then  Cadoc  rising,  followed 
the  mouse  into  a  cellar,  where  he  found  deposited  an  enor- 
mous heap  of  corn.^  This  wheat,  a  gift  of  Providence,  gave 
sustenance  to  the  master  and  his  pupils ;  and,  according  to 
the  wish  of  Cadoc,  was  shared  with  all  who  were  in  want 
like  themselves. 

Having  early  decided  to  embrace  monastic  life,  he  hid 
himself  in  a  wood,  where,  after  making  a  narrow  escape 
from  assassination  by  the  armed  swine-herd  of  a  neighbour- 
ing chief,  he  saw,  near  a  forgotten  fountain,  an  enormous 
wild  boar,  white  with  age,  come  out  of  his  den,  and  make 
three  bounds,  one  after  the  other,  stopping  each  time,  and 
turning  round  to  stare  furiously  at  the  stranger  who  had 
disturbed  him  in  his  resting-place.  Cadoc  marked  with 
three  branches  the  three  bounds  of  the  wild  boar,  which 

1  "  Tibi  filium  meum  comraendo  .  .  .  ut  ilium  liberalibus  artibus  divi- 
nisque  dogmatibus  erudias.  .  .  .  Ilium  Donate,  Priscianoque,  necnon  aliis 
artibus,  per  annos  duodecim  diligentius  instruxit." — P.  28. 

^  "  Ab  illo  Eomano  more  latinitate  doceri  non  minimum  optavit." — 
Vita,  c.  8. 

^  "Mus  septies  eundo  et  redeundo  totidem  triticea  in  suo  volumine 
abdidit,  animadvertens  indicio  divinam  sibi  adesse  miserationem." — 
Ibid. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  407 

afterwards  became  the  site  of  the  church,  dormitories,  and 
refectory  of  the  great  abbey  of  Llancarvan,  of  which  he  was 
the  founder.  The  abbey  toolc  its  name  {Ecdesia  Cervorum) 
from  the  celebrated  legend,  according  to  which,  two  deer  from 
the  neighbouring  wood  came  one  day  to  replace  two  idle  and 
disobedient  monks  who  had  refused  to  perform  the  necessary 
labour  for  the  construction  of  the  monastery,  saying,  "  Are 
we  oxen,  that  we  should  be  yoked  to  carts,  and  compelled  to 
drag  timber  ?  "  ^ 

Llancarvan,  however,  was  not  only  a  great  workshop, 
where  numerous  monks,  subject  to  a  very  severe  rule,  bowed 
their  bodies  under  a  yoke  of  continual  fatigue,  clearing  the 
forests,  and  cultivating  the  fields  when  cleared ;  it  was, 
besides,  a  great  religious  and  literary  school,  in  which  the 
study  and  transcription  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  held  the  van, 
and  was  followed  by  that  of  the  ancient  authors  and  their 
more  recent  commentators. 

Among  the  numerous  pupils  whom  it  received — some  to 
follow  the  monastic  life  for  the  rest  of  their  days,  some  only 
to  carry  on  their  ordinary  education — were  many  chiefs'  and 
kings'  sons  like  Cadoc  himself  To  these  he  addressed  special 
instructions,  which  may  be  summed  up  in  the  two  sentences 
which  a  prince  of  North  Wales  remembered  long  after  to 
have  heard  from  his  own  lips — "  Remember  that  thou  art  a 
man ;  "  "  There  is  no  king  like  him  who  is  king  of  him- 
self." ^ 

Cadoc  loved  to  sum  up,  chiefly  under  the  form  of  sentences 
in  verse  and  poetical  aphorisms,  the  instructions  given  to  the 
pupils  of  the  Llancarvan  cloister.  A  great  number  of  such 
poetical  utterances,  which  have  been  preserved  in  the  memory 
of  the  Gael  and  brought  to  light  by  modern  erudition,  are 
attributed  to  him.  We  instance  some,  which  are  not  the 
least  interesting  and  touching,  for  having  been  produced  in 
a  British  cloister  in  the  sixth  century,  under  the  disturbing 

1  "  Numquid  more  bourn  plaustra  gestare  valemus  ? " 

2  La  Villemaeque,  p.  184. 


408  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN   OF 

influences  of  Saxon  invasion,  and  far  from  all  the  fountains 
of  classic  wisdom  and  beauty  : — 

Truth  is  the  elder  daughter  of  God. 
Without  light  nothing  is  good. 
"Without  light  there  is  no  piety. 
Without  light  there  is  no  religion. 
Without  light  there  is  no  faith. 
There  is  no  light  without  the  sight  of  God. 

The  same  thought  is  afterwards  reproduced  under  another 
form : — 

Without  knowledge,  no  power. 

Without  knowledge,  no  wisdom. 

Without  knowledge,  no  freedom. 

Without  knowledge,  no  beauty. 

Without  knowledge,  no  nobleness. 

Without  knowledge,  no  victory. 

Without  knowledge,  no  honour. 

Without  knowledge,  no  God. 

The  best  of  attitudes  is  humility. 

The  best  of  occupations,  work. 

The  best  of  sentiments,  pity. 

The  best  of  cares,  justice. 

The  best  of  pains,  that  which  a  man  takes  to  make  peace 

between  two  enemies. 
The  best  of  sorrows,  sorrow  for  sin. 
The  best  of  characters,  generosity. 

The  poet  then  makes  his  appearance  by  the  side  of  the 
theologian  and  moralist : — 

No  man  is  the  son  of  knowledge  if  he  is  not  the  son  of  poetry. 

No  man  loves  poetry  without  loving  the  light ; 

Nor  the  light  without  loving  the  truth  ; 

Nor  the  truth  without  loving  justice  ; 

Nor  justice  without  loving  God. 

And  he  who  loves  God  cannot  fail  to  be  happy. 

The  love  of  God  was,  then,  the  supreme  aim  of  his  teach- 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  409 

ing,  as  of  his  life.      When  one  of  his  disciples  asked  him  to 
define  it,  he  answered  : — 

"  Love,  it  is  Heaven." 

"  And  hate  ? "  asked  tlie  disciple. 

"  Hate  is  Hell." 

"  And  conscience  ? " 

"  It  is  the  eye  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man."  1 

Cadoc  asked  nothing  from  the  postulants  who  came  to  take 
the  cowl  in  his  monastery.  On  the  contrary,  in  order  to  gain 
admission  it  was  necessary  to  lay  aside  everything,  even  to 
the  last  article  of  dress,  and  to  be  received  naked  as  a  ship- 
wrecked man,  according  to  the  expression  of  the  rule."  This 
was  the  easier  to  him  that  he  was  himself  rich  by  means  of 
the  gifts  of  land  given  him  by  his  father  and  maternal 
grandfather.^ 

Cadoc  had  the  happiness  of  assisting  in  the  conversion 
of  his  father  before  he  became  his  heir.  In  the  depths  of 
his  cloister  he  groaned  over  the  rapines  and  sins  of  the  old 
robber  from  whom  he  derived  his  life  and  his  monastic 
possessions.  Accordingly  he  sent  to  his  father's  house 
three  of  his  monks,  who,  after  having  consulted  with  the 
elders  and  lords  of  the  country,  undertook  to  preach  re- 
pentance to  the  father  of  their  abbot.  His  mother,  the 
beautiful  Gladusa,  carried  off  of  old  by  King  Guen-Liou, 
was  the  first  to  be  touched.  "  Let  us  believe,"  she  said, 
"  in  our  son,  and  let  him  be  our  father  for  heaven."  And 
it  was  not  long  before  she  persuaded  her  husband  to  agree 
with  her.  They  called  their  son  to  make  to  him  public 
confession  of  their  sins,  after  which  the  king  said,  "  Let  all 
my  race  obey  Cadoc  with  true  piety,  and  after  death  let  all 

^  I  borrow  these  quotations  from  those  drawn  by  M.  Walter  and  M.  de  la 
Villemarque  from  the  collection  entitled  Myvyrian  Archceology  of  Wales, 
London,  180 1-7. 

2  La  Villemarque,  p.  160. 

^  The  boundaries  of  his  lands  are  very  exactly  noted  by  his  biographer, 
Rees,  pp.  38,  45,  and  336. 


410  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

the  kings,  earls,  and  chiefs,  and  all  the  servants  of  the  kings, 
be  buried  in  his  cemetery."  ^  Then  the  father  and  son 
chanted  together  the  psalm,  "  Exaudiat  U  Dominus  in  die 
tribulationis."  When  this  was  ended  the  king  and  queen 
retired  into  solitude,  establishing  themselves  in  the  first  place 
at  a  short  distance  from  each  other,  in  two  cabins  on  the 
bank  of  a  river.  They  lived  there  by  the  work  of  their 
hands,  without  other  food  than  barley  bread,  in  which  there 
was  a  mingling  of  ashes,  and  cresses,  the  bitterness  of  which 
was  sweet  to  them  as  a  foretaste  of  heaven.  One  of  their 
principal  austerities,  which  is  also  to  be  found  in  the  history 
of  various  other  Celtic  and  Anglo-Saxon  saints,  was  to  bathe, 
in  winter  as  in  summer,  in  cold  water  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  and  to  pass  its  remaining  hours  in  prayer.  Cadoc 
visited  them  often  and  exhorted  them  to  perseverance ;  he 
ended  even  by  persuading  them  to  give  up  the  comparative 
sweetness  of  their  life  together.  His  mother  was  still  the 
first  to  obey  him.  She  sought  out  a  more  profound  solitude, 
and  disappeared  there.  Guen-Liou  followed  her  example.  He 
died  soon  after  in  his  son's  arms,  leaving  him  all  his  lands.^ 
One  would  fain  hope  that  the  same  consolation  was  accorded  to 
a  mother  so  generous,  but  the  legend  is  silent  as  to  her  death. 
These  patrimonial  gifts  conferred  upon  Cadoc  great 
territorial  wealth,  and  an  external  power  which  he  used  to 
secure  around  his  monastery  the  safety  and  wellbeing  which 
were  nowhere  else  to  be  found.     "  To  know  the  country  of 

1  Llancarvan  actually  became  the  burying-place  of  the  Welsh  kings  and 
nobility  as  long  as  the  independence  of  the  country  lasted  ;  but,  strangely 
enough,  King  Guen-Liou  was  not  himself  buried  there. 

2  "  Vir  Dei  pravos  proprii  genitoris  actus  congemiscens,  sibi  condolens 
,  .  .  Gladusa:  .  .  .  Credamur  filio  nostro,  eritque  nobis  pater  in  coelo. 
.  .  .  Carices  fontanfe  erant  illis  in  pulmentaria  dulces  herbe,  sed  dul- 
cissime  que  trahebant  ad  premia.  .  .  .  Noluit  ut  tanta  vicinia  esset  inter 
illos,  ne  carnalis  concupiscentia  a  castitate  inviolanda  perverteret  animos. 
.  .  .  Nunc  totam  regionem  meam,  pro  quo  plures  injurias  nonnuUaque 
dampna  sustinuisti,  tibi  modo  veluti  prius  coram  astantibus  cunctis,  et 
meum  testamentum  hie  audientibus  commendo." — Vita  S.  Cadoci,  c.  24 
and  50.      Vita  S.  Gundleii,  c.  6,  7,  8,  ap.  Rees. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  411 

Cadoc,"  it  was  said,  "  it  is  only  necessary  to  discover  where 
the  cattle  feed  in  freedom,  where  the  men  fear  nothing,  and 
where  everything  breathes  peace."  ^  His  wealth  permitted 
him  to  accomplish  with  success  and  energy  the  noble  mission 
which  is  the  most  interesting  part  of  his  life,  in  which  he 
appeared  as  the  protector  of  his  dependants  and  neighbours, 
the  guardian  of  the  goods  of  the  poor,  of  the  honour  of 
women,  of  the  weakness  of  the  humble,  and  of  all  the  lower 
classes  of  the  Cambrian  people,  against  the  oppression,  pil- 
lage, violence,  and  extortions  of  the  princes  and  the  power- 
ful. His  personal  character,  courageous  and  compassionate, 
is  better  evidenced  thus  than  in  the  position,  half  of  austere 
solitary,  half  of  feudal  chief,  which  was  held  by  so  great  a 
number  of  monastic  superiors  in  mediaeval  times. 

We  are  expressly  told  that  he  was  at  once  abbot  and 
prince.  "  Are  you  fools,"  said  the  steward  of  one  of  his 
domains  to  the  squires  of  a  Cambrian  prince  who  would 
have  taken  from  him  by  force  the  milk  of  his  cows — "  are 
you  unaware  that  our  master  is  a  man  of  great  honour  and 
dignity — that  he  has  a  family  of  three  hundred  men,  main- 
tained at  his  cost,  a  hundred  priests,  a  hundred  knights, 
and  a  hundred  workmen,  without  counting  women  and 
children  ?"^  It  is  not,  however,  apparent  that  he  ever 
fought  for  his  rights  by  force  of  arms,  as  did  more  than 
one  abbot  of  later  times.  But  at  the  head  of  fifty  monks 
chanting  psalms,  and  with  a  harp  in  his  hand,  he  went  out 
to  meet  the  exactors,  the  robbers,  the  tyrants,  and  their 
followers  ;  and  if  he  did  not  succeed  in  arresting  their  steps 
and  turning  them  from  their  evil  intentions,  he  called  down 

1  "  Hoc  erit  vobis  in  signum :  cum  ad  illius  patriam  solum  veneritis, 
animalia  liberius  in  pascuis  pascentia,  hominesque  fretos  ac  imperterritos 
invenietis  .  .  .  ab  omni  belli  precinctu  indempnes." — Vita,  c.  20. 

2  "  Abbas  enim  erat  et  princeps.  .  .  .  Numquid  excordes  estis,  estiman- 
tes  quod  dominus  noster  honoris  sit  vir  magni  et  dignitatis  cum  utique 
magnam  familiam  trecentorum  virorum,  scilicet  clericos,  totidemque 
milites  atque  ejusdem  numeri  operarios,  exceptis  parvulis  et  mulieribuSj 

bur." — Vita,  c.  15,  20. 


412  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OF 

upon  their  heads  a  supernatural  and  exemplary  chastisement. 
Sometimes  the  aggressors  were  swallowed  up  in  a  quagmire, 
which  opened  all  at  once  under  their  feet — and  the  abyss 
remained  open  and  gaping,  as  a  warning  to  future  tyrants.-^ 
Sometimes  they  were  struck  with  blindness,  and  wandered 
groping  through  the  district  which  they  had  come  to  ravage. 
Such  was  the  fate  of  the  prince  whose  messengers  had 
carried  off  the  daughter  of  one  of  Cadoc's  stewards,  whose 
fresh  beauty  had  gained  for  her  the  name  of  Aval-Kain,  or 
Fresh  as  an  apple.  Her  relations  mounted  their  horses, 
and,  giving  the  alarm  everywhere  by  sound  of  trumpet, 
pursued  the  ravishers  and  killed  them  all  except  one,  who 
escaped  to  tell  the  tale  to  his  master.  The  latter  returned 
with  a  more  numerous  following  to  put  the  neighbourhood 
to  fire  and  sword ;  but  Cadoc  reassured  the  people,  who  sur- 
rounded him  with  groans  and  cries.  "  Be  at  rest,"  he  said ; 
"  courage  and  confidence  ;  the  Lord  will  bring  our  enemies 
to  nothing."  And,  in  fact,  the  invader  and  his  followers 
were  soon  seen  groping  their  way  like  the  blind.  "Why 
comest  thou  here  in  arms  to  pillage  and  ravage  the  country  ?  " 
Cadoc  asked  of  their  leader ;  and  he  restored  him  his  sight 
and  the  means  of  returning  to  his  country  only  after  having 
made  him  swear  to  maintain  perpetual  peace.  "  It  is  thou 
whom  I  will  take  for  my  confessor  before  all  other,"  ^  said 
the   contrite    and   comforted  prince.      On  another  occasion 

1  "Praedones  infausti  .  .  .  secuti  sunt  eum  fere  L.  clerici  obviantes 
funesto  tyranno  cum  canticis  et  hymnis  et  psalmis.  .  .  .  Terra  aperuit  os 
suum  .  .  .  et  absorbuit  tyrannum  vivum  cum  suis.  .  .  .  Fossaque  usque 
in  hodiernum  diem  cunctis  transeuntibus  liquet  .  .  .  qute  patula  semper 
in  hujus  rei  testimonium  permanens  a  nuUo  oppilari  permittitur." — 
Vita,  c.  15. 

2  "Ad  B.  Cadoci  pretoris  domum  venientes  ejusdem  formosissimam 
filiam  rapuerunt  Abalcem  nomine,  puellam  speciosissimam.  .  .  .  Consan- 
guinei  puellse  caballos  suos  ascenderunt,  cornibusque  insonuerunt.  .  .  . 
Occurrerunt  indigenes  hostili  timore  perterriti,  cum  nimio  planctu.  .  .  . 
Respondit  eis :  Estote  robusti  nee  formidetis.  .  .  .  Utquid  ad  meam 
patriam  armata  manu  prcedandi  vastandique  causa  advenisti  ?  Cui  rex : 
.  .  .  Te  hodie  confessorem  mihi,  si  tibi  beneplacitum  fuerit,  inter  dextrales 
prse  omnibus  eligo." — Vita,  c.  19  and  65. 


THE    BRITISH   ISLES  413 

the  smoking  of  a  burning  barn  blinded  the  leader  whose 
men  had  set  it  on  fire.  He  too  was  healed  by  the  holy- 
abbot,  and  presented  to  Cadoc  his  sword,  his  lance,  his 
buckler,  and  war-horse  completely  equipped  for  battle.^ 

By  such  services,  constantly  and  everywhere  renewed,  the 
power  of  the  monastic  order  was  founded,  in  Britain  as  else- 
where, in  the  souls  of  the  Christian  people.  Such  recollec- 
tions, transmitted  from  father  to  son  at  the  domestic  hearth, 
explain  the  long  existence  of  a  fame  so  nobly  acquired. 
And  it  is  the  desire  not  only  to  reward,  but,  above  all,  to 
guarantee  and  perpetuate  an  intervention  at  once  so  power- 
ful and  so  blessed,  which  justifies  the  vast  donations  lavished, 
not  less  by  wise  foresight  than  by  the  gratitude  of  nations, 
upon  the  men  who  alone  showed  themselves  always  ready  to 
combat  the  greedy  and  sensual  instincts  of  the  kings  and  the 
great,  and  to  punish  the  odious  abuses  of  wealth  and  force. 

The  petty  robber  princes  of  North  Wales  were  all  con- 
strained to  recognise  the  right  of  asylum  and  immunity 
which  had  been  granted  to  the  noble  abbot  and  his  monas- 
tery by  King  Arthur,  whose  states  extended  to  the  west 
and  south  of  Cadoc's  domain.  For,  without  any  fear  of 
anachronism,  the  legend  takes  pains  to  connect  the  popular 
saint  with  the  great  Briton  king  who  was  once  enamoured 
of  his  mother ;  and  in  connection  with  this,  gives  one  more 
instance  of  the  brave  and  liberal  charity  of  Cadoc,  who,  not 
content  with  protecting  his  own  oppressed  countrymen, 
opened  the  gates  of  Llancarvan  to  exiles  and  outlaws,  and 
even  received  there  a  prince  pursued  by  the  hate  of  Arthur. 
A  long  contest  followed  between  the  king  and  the  abbot, 
which  was  ended  by  the  solemn  recognition  of  a  right  of 
asylum  similar  to  that  which  had  been  granted  to  St.  David. 
By  the  side  of  this  protection  guaranteed  to  fugitives,  the 

1  "  Dum  prelocutus  Rein  in  tabernaculo  ludens  in  alea  cum  suis  eunuchis 
consedisset,  fumus  ad  instar  lignei  postis,  de  horreo  procedens,  recto 
tramite  se  ad  ipsius  papilionem  tetendit  lumenque  oculorum  omnium 
ibidem  commanentium  obcecavit. " — Vita,  c.  20. 


414  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

principle  of  composition — that  is  to  say,  of  a  ransom  for 
murder,  payable  in  money  or  in  cattle  to  the  relations  of  the 
victim — makes  its  appearance  in  the  abbot's  agreements 
with  his  rapacious  and  violent  neighbours.^ 

It  was  thus  that  the  glorious  abbot  acquired  the  surname 
of  Cadoc  the  Wise — a  name  which  still  appears  at  the  head 
of  the  many  poems  attributed  to  him.  For,  like  all  the 
Gaels,  he  continued  faithful  to  poetry,  and  often,  among  his 
disciples,  sang,  to  the  accompaniment  of  his  harp,  verses  in 
which  he  gave  full  utterance  to  the  religious  and  patriotic 
emotions  of  his  heart,  as  in  the  poem  which  has  been  pre- 
served under  the  name  of  the  Hate  of  Cadoc. 

"I  hate  the  judge  who  loves  money,  and  the  bard  who 
loves  war,  and  the  chiefs  who  do  not  guard  their  subjects, 
and  the  nations  without  vigour ;  I  hate  houses  without 
dwellers,  lands  untilled,  fields  that  bear  no  harvest,  landless 
clans,  the  agents  of  error,  the  oppressors  of  truth  ;  I  hate 
him  who  respects  not  father  and  mother,  those  who  make 
strife  among  friends,  a  country  in  anarchy,  lost  learning, 
and  uncertain  boundaries  ;  I  hate  journeys  without  safety, 
families  without  virtue,  lawsuits  without  reason,  ambushes 
and  treasons,  falsehood  in  council,  justice  unhonoured  ;  I 
hate  a  man  without  a  trade,  a  labourer  without  freedom,  a 
house  without  a  teacher,  a  false  witness  before  a  judge,  the 
miserable  exalted,  fables  in  place  of  teaching,  knowledge 
without  inspiration,  sermons  without  eloquence,  and  a  man 
without  conscience."  ^ 

The  invasion  of  the  Saxon  idolaters,  however,  with  all  its 
accompanying  horrors  and  profanations,  reached  in  succession 
the  banks  of  the  Severn  and  the  Usk,  which  bounded  the 
monastic  domains  of  Cadoc.  He  found  himself  compelled 
to  leave  Wales  and  make  sail  for  Armorica,  where  so  many 
illustrious  exiles,  who  have  since  become  the  apostles  and 

1   Vita  S.  Cadoci,  c.  i8,  25,  65.     La  VillemARQUE,  pp.  172-77. 
^  Translated  by  M.  de  la  Villemarqu^,  who  publishes  the  original  text, 
p.  309  of  his  Legende  Ccltique. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  415 

legendary  patrons  of  that  glorious  province,  had  preceded 
him.  He  founded  there  a  new  monastery  on  a  little  desert 
island  of  the  archipelago  of  Morbihan,  which  is  still  shown 
from  the  peninsula  of  Rhuys ;  and  to  make  his  school 
accessible  to  the  children  of  the  district,  who  had  to  cross 
to  the  isle  and  back  again  in  a  boat,  he  threw  a  stone 
bridge  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long  across  this  arm  of 
the  sea.  In  this  modest  retreat  the  Cambrian  prince  re- 
sumed his  monastic  life,  adapting  it  especially  to  his  ancient 
scholarly  habits.  He  made  his  scholars  learn  Virgil  by 
heart ;  and  one  day,  while  walking  with  his  friend  and 
companion,  the  famous  historian  Gildas,-^  with  his  Virgil 
under  his  arm,  the  abbot  began  to  weep  at  the  thought  that 
the  poet  whom  he  loved  so  much  might  be  even  then  per- 
haps in  hell.  .  At  the  moment  when  Gildas  reprimanded 
him  severely  for  that  perhajjs,  protesting  that  without  any 
doubt  Virgil  must  be  damned,  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  tossed 
Cadoc's  book  into  the  sea.  He  was  much  moved  by  this 
accident,  and  returning  to  his  cell,  said  to  himself,  "  I  will 
not  eat  a  mouthful  of  bread  nor  drink  a  drop  of  water  before 
I  know  truly  what  fate  God  has  allotted  to  those  who  sang 
upon  earth  as  the  angels  sing  in  heaven."  After  this  he 
fell  asleep,  and  soon  after,  dreaming,  heard  a  soft  voice 
addressing  him.  "  Pray  for  me,  pray  for  me,"  said  the 
voice — "  never  be  weary  of  praying ;  I  shall  yet  sing  eter- 
nally the  mercy  of  the  Lord. " 

The  next  morning  a  fisherman  of  Belz  brought  him  a 
salmon,  and  the  saint  found  in  the  fish  the  book  which  the 
wind  had  snatched  out  of  his  hands.  ^ 

^  "  Britannus  egregius  scholasticus  et  scriptor  optimus." —  Vita  S.  Oadoci, 
P-  59. 

2  La  Villemarqu^  p.  203.  The  same  sentiment  is  to  be  found  here 
which  dictated  that  sequence,  pointed  out  by  Ozanam  and  sung  at  Mantua, 
upon  St.  Paul's  visit  to  the  tomb  of  Virgil : — 

"  Ad  Maronis  mausoleum  "  Quem  te,  inquit,  reddidissem, 

Ductus,  fudit  super  eum  Si  te  vivum  invenissem, 

Piee  rorem  lacrymae,  Poetarum  maxime  !  " 


41 6  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN    OF 

After  a  sojourn  of  several  years  in  Armorica,  Cadoc  left 
his  new  community  flourishing  under  the  government  of 
another  pastor,  and  to  put  in  practice  that  maxim  which  he 
loved  to  repeat  to  his  followers — "Wouldst  thou  find  glory  ? 
— march  to  the  grave !  " — he  returned  to  Britain,  not  to 
find  again  the  ancient  peace  and  prosperity  of  his  beloved 
retreat  of  Llancarvan/  but  to  establish  himself  in  the  very 
centre  of  the  Saxon  settlements,  and  console  the  numerous 
Christians  who  had  survived  the  massacres  of  the  conquest, 
and  lived  under  the  yoke  of  a  foreign  and  heathen  race. 
He  settled  at  Weedon,  in  the  county  of  Northampton ;  ^  and 
it  was  there  that  he  awaited  his  martyrdom. 

One  morning  when,  vested  with  the  ornaments  of  his 
ecclesiastical  rank,  he  was  celebrating  the  divine  sacrifice,  a 
furious  band  of  Saxon  cavalry,  chasing  the  Christians  before 
them,  entered  pell-mell  into  the  church,  and  crowded  towards 
the  altar.  The  saint  continued  the  sacrifice  as  calmly  as  he 
had  begun  it.  A  Saxon  chief,  urging  on  his  horse,  and 
brandishing  his  lance,  went  up  to  him  and  struck  him  to 
the  heart.  Cadoc  fell  on  his  knees  ;  and  his  last  desire,  his 
last  thought,  were  still  for  his  dear  countrymen :  "  Lord,"  he 
said,  while  dying,  "  invisible  King,  Saviour  Jesus,  grant  me 
one  grace — protect  the  Christians  of  my  country ;  ^  let  their 
trees  still  bear  fruit,  their  fields  give  corn ;  fill  them  with 
goods  and  blessings ;  and,  above  all,  be  merciful  to  them, 
that,  after  having  honoured  Thee  on  earth,  they  may  glorify 
Thee  in  heaven  !  " 

The  Britons  of  Cambria  and  of  Armorica  long  disputed 

^  "Ad  proprias  sui  cari  ruris  sedes  Llancarvan." — Vita,  c.  9. 

2  All  historians  seem  to  agree  in  translating  thus  the  Benevcntum,  in 
the  Latin  text,  which  has  given  occasion  to  strange  speculations  upon  the 
episcopate  of  Cadoc  at  Benevento,  in  Italy.  It  is  not  positively  stated  in 
the  Latin  that  Cadoc's  murderers  were  Saxons,  but  such  is  the  unvarying 
tradition,  which  is  also  affirmed  by  M.  de  la  Villemarqu^,  on  the  authority 
of  the  Chronicle  of  Quimperl^,  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Beaumont,  at 
Castleton  (Yorkshire),  and  according  to  the  inscription  of  a  tablet  in  the 
Chapel  of  St.  Cadoc,  near  Entel,  in  Brittany. 

*  La  Villemakque,  p.  215. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  417 

the  glory  and  privilege  of  paying  to  Cadoc  those  honours 
which  were  due  to  him  at  once  in  a  religious  and  national 
point  of  view.  But  the  latter  have  remained  the  most 
faithful ;  and  eight  centuries  after  his  death  the  great  Celtic 
monk  and  patriot  was  still  invoked  as  their  special  patron 
by  the  Breton  knights  in  the  famous  battle  of  the  Thirty, 
where  Beaumanoir  drank  his  own  blood.  On  their  way  to 
the  field  they  went  into  a  chapel  dedicated  to  St.  Cadoc, 
and  appealed  to  him  for  aid,  and  returned  victorious,  singing 
a  Breton  ballad,  which  ends  thus — 

"  He  is  not  the  friend  of  the  Bretons  who  does  not  cry 
for  joy  to  see  our  warriors  return  with  the  yellow  broom  in 
their  casques ; 

"  He  is  no  friend  of  the  Bretons,  nor  of  the  Breton  saints, 
who  does  not  bless  St.  Cadoc,  the  patron  of  our  warriors ; 

"  He  who  does  not  shout,  and  bless,  and  worship,  and 
sing,  '  In  heaven,  as  on  earth,  Cadoc  has  no  peer.' "  ^ 

The  long  popularity  of  this  Cambrian  Briton  upon  the 
two  shores  of  that  sea  which  separates  the  Celtic  countries 
is,  however,  eclipsed  by  that  of  a  young  girl,  whose  history 
is  unknown,  and  her  faith  unpractised,  by  the  Welsh  popu- 
lation of  the  present  day,  but  whose  memory  has  neverthe- 
less been  preserved  among  them  with  superstitious  fidelity. 
This  is  Winifred,  the  young  and  beautiful  daughter  of  one 
of  the  lords  of  Wales.  Flying  from  the  brutality  of  a  certain 
King  Caradoc,^  who  had  found  her  alone  in  her  father's 
house,  she  fled  to  the  church  where  her  parents  were  pray- 
ing, but  was  pursued  by  the  king,  who  struck  off  her  head 
on  the  very  threshold  of  the  church.  At  the  spot  where 
the  head  of  this  martyr  of  modesty  struck  the  soil,  there 
sprang  up  an  abundant  fountain,  which  is  still  frequented, 

1  The  Breton  text  of  this  ballad  has  been  published  by  M.  de  la  Ville- 
marqud.  The  touching  narrative  of  his  visit  to  the  ruins  of  Llancarvan 
and  of  the  devotion  which  still  draws  a  crowd  of  pilgrims  into  the  isle  of 
Morbihan,  which  was  inhabited  by  the  saint,  will  be  found  in  his  Legcnde 
Celtique. 

"  Evidently  the  same  name  as  that  of  the  Caractacus  of  Tacitus. 
VOL.  11.  2  D 


4l8  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OP 

and  even  venerated,  by  a  population  divided  into  twenty 
different  sects,  but  animated  by  one  common  hatred  for 
Catholic  truth.  This  fountain  has  given  its  name  to  the 
town  of  Holywell.  Its  source  is  covered  by  a  fine  Gothic 
porch  of  three  arches,  under  which  it  forms  a  vast  basin, 
where,  from  morning  to  evening,  the  sick  and  infirm  of  a 
region  ravaged  by  heresy  come  to  bathe,  with  a  strange 
confidence  in  the  miraculous  virtue  of  those  icy  waters. 

According  to  the  legend,  this  virgin  martyr  was  restored 
to  life  by  a  holy  monk  called  Beino,  who,  like  all  the  monks 
of  the  time,  had  founded  many  convents,  and  received  from 
the  princes  many  contributions  for  his  foundations.  Not- 
withstanding, he  exercised  a  conscientious  reserve  as  to 
accepting  anything  which  the  donor  had  not  a  full  title  to 
bestow.  One  day  he  superintended,  in  his  own  person,  the 
building  of  a  church  upon  an  estate  which  had  just  been 
granted  to  him  by  King  Cadwallon,  the  conqueror  of  the 
Northumbrian  ^  Saxons,  or  rather,  had  been  given  in  ex- 
change for  a  golden  sceptre,  of  the  value  of  sixty  cows. 
While  there,  a  woman  came  to  him,  bringing  a  new-born 
child  to  be  baptized.  The  cries  of  the  child  were  deafening. 
"  What  ails  the  child,  that  ho  cries  so  much  ? "  Beino  at 
length  asked. 

"  He  has  a  very  good  reason,"  said  the  woman. 

"  What  is  the  reason  ?  "  asked  the  monk. 

"  This  land  which  you  have  in  your  possession,  and  on 
which  you  are  building  a  church,  belonged  to  his  father." 

At  that  moment  Beino  called  out  to  his  workmen,  "  Stop  ; 
let  nothing  more  be  done  till  I  have  baptized  the  child,  and 
spoken  to  the  king."  Then  he  hastened  to  Caernarvon  to 
the  monarch  :  "  Why,"  cried  the  monk,  "  hast  thou  given  me 
these  lands  which  belong  justly  to  another  ?  The  child  in 
this  woman's  arms  is  the  heir  :   let  them  be  restored  to  him." 

Nothing  can  be  more  noble  and  touching  than  this  evidence 
of  the  respect  of  the  cenobites  for  that  sacred  right  of  pro- 
^  Bede,  book  ii.  c.  20 :  book  iii.  c.  i. 


THE   BRITISH   ISLES  419 

perty  which  has  been  so  constantly  and  vilely,  and  with  such 
impunity,  violated  to  their  hurt ! 

The  life  of  this  monk,  which  was  originally  written  only 
in  the  Welsh  language,-^  contains  other  details  not  less  curious. 
It  was  he  who  planted  beside  his  father's  grave  an  acorn, 
which  grew  into  a  great  oak,  and  which,  according  to  the 
legend,  no  Englishman  could  approach  without  instant  death, 
though  the  Welsh  took  no  harm.  He,  too,  it  was  who  was 
driven  to  abandon  a  favourite  spot  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn, 
by  the  sound  of  an  English  voice  which  he  heard  with  horror, 
from  the  other  side  of  the  river,  cheering  on  the  hounds  with 
Saxon  cries.  "  Take  up  your  frocks  and  your  shoes,"  he  said 
to  his  companions,  "  and  quick,  let  us  depart ;  this  man's 
nation  speaks  a  language  abominable  to  me :  they  come  to 
invade  us,  and  take  away  our  goods  for  ever." 

These  familiar  anecdotes  of  the  monk  Beino,  as  well  as  the 
martyrdom  of  Cadoc,  the  patriot  monk  and  sage,  by  the  hand 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  prove  the  insurmountable  dislike  which 
rose  like  a  wall  between  the  souls  of  the  Britons  and  those 
of  the  Saxons,  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the 
arrival  of  the  heathen  invaders  in  Britain.  The  fertile  and 
generous  genius  of  the  Celtic  race,  overmastered  by  this 
patriotic  hatred,  and  by  a  too  just  resentment  of  the  violence 
and  sacrilege  of  the  conquest,  was  thus  made  powerless  to  aid 
in  the  great  work  of  converting  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Chris- 
tianity. Not  only  is  it  impossible  to  record  a  single  effort, 
made  by  any  British  monk  or  prelate,  to  preach  the  faith  to 
the  conquerors  ;  but  even  the  great  historian  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  expressly  states,  that  the  British  inhabitants  of  the 
great  island  had  come  under  a  mutual  engagement  never  to 
reveal  the  truths  of  religion  to  those  whose  power  and  neigh- 
bourhood they  were  obliged  to  endure — and,  at  the  same  time, 
had  taken  a  vindictive  resolution,  even  when  they  became 
Christians,  to  treat  them  as  incurable  heathens.^    St.  Gregory 

1  Published  and  translated  by  Rbes. 

2  "Ut    nunquam   genti   Saxonum   sive  Arglorum    secum   Britanniam 


42 O        CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF    THE    BRITISH   ISLES 

the  Great  makes  tlie  same  accusation  against  them  in  still 
more  severe  terms.  "  The  priests,"  he  said,  "  who  dwell  on 
the  borders  of  the  English  neglect  them,  and,  putting  aside 
all  pastoral  solicitude,  refuse  to  answer  to  any  desire  which 
that  people  might  have  to  be  converted  to  the  faith  of 
Christ."  ^ 

The  idea  of  seeking  among  the  Britons  the  instruments 
of  that  conversion  which  was  to  give  another  great  nation  to 
the  Church,  must  then  be  relinquished.  But  in  a  neighbour- 
ing island,  in  Hibernia,  there  existed,  in  the  midst  of  a  popu- 
lation of  Celts,  like  the  Britons,  a  flourishing  and  fertile 
Church,  the  spectator,  and  not  the  victim,  of  the  Saxon 
invasion.  Let  us  see  if,  from  that  Island  of  Saints,  and 
from  its  brave  and  adventurous  race,  there  may  not  issue  a 
more  generous  and  expansive  impulse  than  could  be  hoped 
for  amid  the  bleeding  remnants  of  British  Christianity. 

incolenti,  verbum  fidei  praedicando  committerent.  .  .  .  Cum  usque  hodie 
moris  sit  Brittonum,  fidem  religionemque  Anglorum  pro  nihilo  habere, 
neque  in  aliquo  eis  magis  communicare  quam  cum  paganis." — Bede,  i.  22  ; 
ii.  20. 

1  Epist.  vi.  58,  59. 


CHAPTER  III 


MONASTIC    IRELAND    AFTER    ST.    PATRICK 


Ireland  escapes  the  Rome  of  the  Ctesars  to  be  invaded  by  the  Rome  of 
the  Popes. — The  British  assistants  of  St.  Patrick  carry  there  certain 
usages  different  from  those  of  Rome. — Division  between  Patrick  and 
his  fellow-labourers. — He  would  preach  the  faith  to  all. — St.  Carantoc. 
— Emigrations  of  the  Welsh  to  Ireland,  and  of  the  Irish  to  Wales. — 
Disciples  of  St.  David  in  Ireland. — Modonnoc  and  his  bees.— Immense 
monastic  development  of  Ireland  under  the  influence  of  the  Welsh 
monks. — The  peculiar  British  usages  have  nothing  to  do  with  doc- 
trine.— Families  or  clans  transformed  into  monasteries,  with  their 
chiefs  for  abbots. — The  three  orders  of  saints. — Irish  missionaries  on 
the  Continent ;  their  journeys  and  visions. — St.  Brendan  the  sailor. — 
Dega,  monk-bishop  and  sculptor. — Mochuda  the  shepherd  converted 
by  means  of  music. — Continual  preponderance  of  the  monastic  ele- 
ment.—  Celebrated  foundations. — Monasterboyce,  Glendalough  and 
its  nine  churches.  —  Bangor,  from  which  came  Columbanus,  the 
reformer  of  the  Gauls,  and  Clonard,  from  which  issued  Columba, 
the  apostle  of  Caledonia. 

Ireland,  happier  of  old  than  Great  Britain,  escaped  the 
Roman  conquest.  Agricola  had  dreamt  of  invading  it,  and 
even  of  holding  it  with  a  single  legion ;  by  such  a  means 
he  would,  according  to  the  words  of  his  son-in-law,  have 
riveted  the  irons  of  Britain  by  depriving  her  of  the  dan- 
gerous sight  and  contagious  neighbourhood  of  freedom.-^ 
But  this  intention  proved  happily  abortive.  Saved  from 
imperial  proconsuls  and  prsetors,  the  genius  of  the  Celtic 
race  found  there  a  full  development :   it  created  for  itself  a 

1  "  Scepe  ex  eo  audivi,  legione  una  et  modicis  auxiliis  debellari  obti- 
nerique  Hiberniam  posse  :  idque  etiam  adversus  Britanniam  profuturum, 
si  Romana  ubique  arma,  et  velut  e  conspectu  libertas  toUeretur. — Tacit., 
Agricola,  c.  24. 


42  2  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

language,  a  distinctive  poetry,  worship,  and  cultivation,  and 
a  social  hierarchy ;  in  one  word,  a  system  of  civilisation 
equal  and  even  superior  to  that  of  most  other  heathen 
nations.  In  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  Rome,  Chris- 
tian and  Apostolic,  extended  its  sceptre  over  the  land  which 
the  Csesars  had  not  been  able  to  reach,  and  St.  Patrick 
carried  to  it  the  laws  of  Christianity.^  Of  British  origin, 
but  imbued,  like  his  contemporaries  Ninian  and  Palladius, 
the  apostles  of  the  southern  Picts  and  Scots,  with  the  doc- 
trines and  usages  of  Rome,^  the  great  apostle  of  the  Celts 
of  Ireland  left  the  shores  of  Cambria  to  convert  the  neigh- 
bouring island.  He  was  accompanied  and  followed  by  a 
crowd  of  Welsh  or  British  monks,  who  hurried  after  him, 
driven  to  Ireland,  as  their  brothers  had  been  to  Armorica, 
either  by  terror  of  the  Saxon  invasion  or  by  the  thirst  of 
conquering  souls  to  the  truth. ^ 

These   British    missionaries   furnished   Patrick    with   the 
thirty  first  bishops  of  the  Church  of   Ireland,*  who,  in  the 

^  See  vol.  ii.  book  vii.  pp.  243,  244,  the  narrative  of  the  conversion  of 
Ireland  by  St.  Patrick. 

^  "Romanis  eruditus  disciplinis. " — Vit.  S.  David.,  ap.  Rees,  p.  41. 

^  One  of  the  British  assistants  of  Patrick  was  a  St.  Mochta,  whose 
legend  has  been  published  by  the  Bollandists,  in  their  vol.  iii.  August, 
p.  736.  In  this  legend  the  mother  of  Mochta  is  represented  as  the 
servant  of  a  British  Druid.  The  foundation  of  many  monasteries  is 
attributed  to  him,  and  the  evidently  fabulous  number  of  a  hundred 
bishops  and  three  hundred  priests  as  his  disciples  ;  but  the  legend  is 
specially  curious  as  showing  a  kind  of  testamentary  brotherhood  between 
Patrick  and  Mochta.  "  Tunc  Mocteus  ait :  Si  ante  te  de  hac  luce  emi- 
gravero,  familiam  meam  tibi  committo.  At  Patricius  ait :  Et  ego  tibi 
meam  commendo,  si  te  ad  Dominum  prjecessero ;  et  factum  est  ita." 

*  "  Viros  multos  litteratos  et  religiosos  .  .  .  e  quibus  triginta  in  episco- 
patus  ofRciis  principum  sublimavit." — Jocelin,  ap.  BoUand,,  vol.  ii.  Martii, 
p.  559.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  these  bishops  had  actual 
dioceses,  and  a  jurisdiction  perfectly  established,  as  at  a  later  period. 
We  shall  have  occasion  often  to  repeat  that  the  bishops  of  the  Celtic 
churches  had  scarcely  any  other  functions  than  those  of  ordination  and 
transmission  of  the  priestly  character.  The  power  of  the  chiefs  of  great 
monastic  establishments,  who  besides  often  became  bishops,  was  of  a  very 
different  description.  The  constitution  of  dioceses  and  parishes,  in  Ireland 
as  in  Scotland,  does  not  go  further  back  than  to  the  twelfth  century. 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  423 

exercise  of  their  office,  substituted  or  added  certain  rites 
and  usages,  purely  British,  to  those  which  Patrick  had 
brought  from  Rome.  Ireland  was  converted,  but  she  was 
converted  according  to  the  model  of  Britain  ^ — profoundly 
and  unchangeably  Catholic  in  doctrine,  but  separated  from 
Rome  by  various  points  of  discipline  and  liturgy,  without 
any  real  importance,  which,  from  the  narratives  that  remain 
to  us  of  the  life  of  St.  Patrick,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
define.  Even  in  the  lifetime  of  Patrick,  might  there  not 
have  been  differences  between  him  and  his  British  fellow- 
labourers  on  these  points  ?  This  seems  probable,  from 
certain  particulars  in  his  history  and  writings, — as,  for 
example,  that  passage  in  his  Confession  where  he  says  that 
he  had  brought  the  Gospel  to  Ireland  in  spite  of  his  seniors 
— that  is  to  say,  according  to  Tillemont,  in  spite  of  the 
British  priests.  In  the  obscure  and  perhaps  altered  texts 
of  the  two  Canons  of  Council  which  are  attributed  to  him, 
certain  acts  which  show  a  violent  hostility  to  the  British 
clergy  and  monks  will  be  remarked  with  surprise.^  The 
Cambrian  legend,  on  the  other  hand,  expressly  points  out, 
among  the  companions  of  Patrick,  a  Welsh  monk,  Carantoc 
or  Carranog,  whom  it  describes  as  "  a  strong  knight  under 
the  sun,"  and  a  "  herald  of  the  celestial  kingdom  ; "  but 
takes  care  to  add  that,  in  consequence  of  the  multitude  of 
clerks  who  accompanied  them,  the  two  agreed  to  separate, 
and  turned  one  to  the  right  and  the  other  to  the  left.  A 
still  more  curious  passage  of  the  Amhra,  or  panegyric  in 
Irish  verse,  addressed  to   St.  Patrick  by  a  monastic  bard, 

1  This  has  been  learnedly  proved  and  put  beyond  doubt  by  M.  Varin,  in 
the  papers  already  quoted. 

2  "  Clericus  qui  de  Britannia  ad  nos  venit  sine  epistola  (episcopi  ?)  et 
si  habitet  in  plebe,  non  licitum  ministrare."  —  Can.  33  du  i'^'"  synode. 
"Cum  monachis  non  est  docendum,  quorum  malum  est  inauditum  qui 
unitatem  vero  plebis  non  incongrue  suscepimus." — Can.  20  du  2^  synode 
Concilia,  ed.  COLETTI,  vol.  iv.  pp.  756,  760. 

3  "  Sub  prsesentia  solis,  fortis  miles,  mirabilis,  spiritalis,  summus  abbas, 
longanimus,  praeceptor  fidelitatis  .  .  .  prseco  regni  coelestis."— Fito  S. 
Carant.,  ap.  Rees,  p.  98.     Compare  the  legend  cited  by  M.  Varin,  op.  cit. 


424  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN   OP 

may  throw  a  ray  of  light  upon  the  sentiments  which  sepa- 
rated that  truly  apostolic  leader  from  the  Welsh  monks, 
who  were  too  often  distinguished  by  their  exclusive  and 
jealous  spirit.  Always  faithful  to  the  prevailing  sentiment 
of  the  Roman  Church,  which  regarded  the  conversion  of  a 
sinner  as  a  greater  miracle  than  resurrection  from  the  dead,^ 
the  saint  is  applauded  by  his  panegyrist  for  having  taught 
the  Gospel  always  without  distinction,  without  difference  of 
caste,  even  to  strangers,  barbarians,  and  Picts.^ 

Whatever  these  discussions  were,  however,  they  did  no 
hurt  either  to  the  Catholic  faith — for  Pelagianism,  the 
leading  heresy  in  Britain,  never  had  any  ground  to  stand 
on  in  Ireland  ^ — nor  to  the  influence  of  the  great  Roman 
missionary,  who  has  continued  the  first  and  most  popular 
saint  in  Catholic  Ireland.  The  gratitude  of  the  kings  and 
people  whom  he  had  converted  showed  itself  in  such  lavish 
generosity,  that,  according  to  the  Irish  saying,  had  he  ac- 
cepted all  that  was  offered  him,  he  would  not  have  left  for 
the  saints  that  came  after  as  much  as  would  have  fed  two 
horses.*  Nothing  is  more  certainly  proved  than  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  new-born  Irish  Church  to  the  Roman  See 
— a  subordination  which  was  decided  and  regulated  by 
Patrick.^      But  it  is  not  less  certain  that  Welsh  and  Breton 

^  "  Majus  est  miraculum  verbo  peccatorem  convertere  quam  carne  mor- 
tuum  resuscitare."— Gregorius,  De  Vita  ct  Mirac.  Patrum,  lib.  iv.  c.  36. 

2  La  Villemarque,  Po^sie  des  CloUres  Celtiques. 

^  This  is  clearly  shown  by  Lanigan,  vol.  ii.  pp.  410-15  {Ecclesiastical 
History  of  Ireland),  notwithstanding  the  affirmation  to  the  contrary  of  the 
Venerable  Bede,  1.  ii.  c.  19. 

■*  Lynch,  Camhrensis  Eversus,  vol.  ii.  p.  11,  ed.  Kelly. 

^  "  Item  quajcumque  caussa  valde  difficilis  exorta  f  uerit  atque  ignota 
cunctis  Scotorum  gentium  judicibus,  ad  cathedram  archiepiscopi  Hibernien- 
sium,  id  est  Patricii  atque  hujus  antistitis  examinationem  recte  referenda. 

"Si  vero  in  ilia  cum  suis  sapientibus  facile  sanari  non  poterit  talis 
caussa  prsedicta  negotiationis,  ad  sedem  apostolicam  decrevimus  esse 
mittendam,  id  est  ad  Petri  apostoli  cathedram,  auctoritatem  Rom^  urbis 
habentem. 

"  Hi  sunt  qui  de  hoc  decreverunt,  id  est  Auxilius,  Patricius,  Secundinus, 
Benignus,     Post  vero  exitum  Patricii  sancti,  alumpni  sui  valde  ejusdem 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  425 

monks  were  the  fellow-workers,  and,  above  all,  the  successors 
of  Patrick  in  Ireland ;  that  they  completed  his  work,  and 
that  the  Church  of  the  island  was  organised  and  developed 
under  their  influence,  thanks  to  the  continual  emigration 
which  took  place  from  Wales  to  Ireland  and  from  Ireland 
to  Wales,  proofs  of  which  are  to  be  found  on  every  page  of 
the  annals  of  those  times. 

It  is  to  the  influence  of  St.  David,  the  great  monk- 
bishop  of  Wales,  that  the  history  of  the  two  Churches 
attributes  the  principal  share  in  the  close  union  of  Irish 
and  Welsh  monasticism.  We  have  already  said  that  the 
episcopal  monastery  which  has  retained  his  name  is  situated 
on  a  promontory  which  projects  from  the  coast  of  Great 
Britain  as  if  to  throw  itself  towards  Ireland.  The  legend 
narrates  that  Patrick,  while  standing  on  this  promontory  at 
a  despondent  moment,  overwhelmed  by  vexation  and  dis- 
couragement, was  cons.oled  by  a  vision  in  which  there  was 
revealed  to  him,  at  one  .glance,  the  whole  extent  of  the 
great  island  which  God  had  reserved  for  him  to  convert 
and  save.^  David,  born  of  anv  Irish  mother,^  died  in  the 
arms  of  one  of  his  Irish  disciples.  Another  of  his  disciples 
was  long  celebrated  for  the  service  he  rendered  to  Ireland 
by  introducing  there  the  culture  of  bees.  For  there,  as 
everywhere,  the  monastic  missionaries  brought  with  them 
not  only  faith,  truth,  and  virtue,  but,  at  the  same  time,  the 
inferior  but  essential  benefits  of  cultivation,  labour,  and 
the  arts. 

Modonnoc,  the  monk  in  question,  was  a  rough  labourer, 
so  rugged  and  intent  upon  keeping  all  at  work,  that  he 

libros  conscripserunt." — Canon  drawn  from  MS.  in  Armagh,  which  is 
believed  to  be  written  hj  Patrick's  own  hand,  and  is  published  by  O'Curry 
{Lectures  on  the  Manuscript  Materials  of  Irish  History,  p.  61 1).  All  the  dis- 
coveries of  contemporar)-  archEeology  and  theology  confirmed  the  union  of 
the  primitive  Church  of  Ireland  with  the  Church  of  Rome. 

1  "Ex  loco  in  quo  stabat,  qui  modo  sedes  Patricii  dicitur,  totam  pro- 
spexit  insulam." — Vita  S.  David,  p.  119. 

2  BoLLAND.,  vol.  i.  Martii,  p.  39. 


426  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

escaped  narrowly  on  one  occasion  from  having  his  head 
broken  by  the  axe  of  a  comrade  whom  he  had  reproached 
for  his  idleness  when  the  two  were  working  together  to 
soften  the  slope  of  a  road  excavated  near  St.  David's  monas- 
tery/ Towards  the  end  of  his  days,  after  a  long  life  of 
obedience  and  humility,  he  embarked  for  Ireland.  All  the 
bees  of  St.  David's  followed  him.  It  was  vain  that  he 
turned  back  his  boat,  on  the  prow  of  which  they  had  settled, 
to  the  shore,  and  denounced  the  fugitives  to  his  superior. 
Three  times  in  succession  he  attempted  to  free  himself  from 
his  strange  companions,  and  had  at  last  to  resign  himself  to 
the  necessity  of  carrying  them  with  him  into  Ireland,  where 
up  to  this  time  they  were  unknown.  By  this  graceful  little 
story  the  legend  enshrines  in  Christian  gratitude  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  laborious  disciple  who  was  the  first  to  introduce 
the  culture  of  bees  into  Ireland,  where  it  spread  rapidly,  and 
became  a  source  of  wealth  to  the  'country.  It  is  pleasant 
to  find,  in  the  same  legend,  that  the  aged  emigrant  took 
special  pains,  in  gathering  his  honey,  to  procure  a  more 
delicate  food  than  their  ordinary  coarse  fare,  for  the  poor.^ 

Thanks  to  this  incessant  emigration,  Ireland,  from  the 
fifth  to  the  eighth  century,  became  one  of  the  principal 
centres  of  Christianity  in  the  world  ;  and  not  only  of  Chris- 
tian holiness  and  virtue,  but  also  of  knowledge,  literature, 

1  "Cum  fratribus  viam  prope  civitatis  confinia  in  proclivio  cavabat, 
quo  ad  deferenda  necessitatum  onera  viantibus  facilior  fieret  accessus. 
Quid  tu  tarn  desidiose  et  segniter  laboras  ?  At  ille  .  .  .  ferrum  quod 
manu  tenebat,  id  est  bipennem  in  altum  elevans,  in  cervice  eum  ferire 
conatus  est." — Ap.  Kees,  p.  133.  In  this  legend  the  monastery  is  always 
entitled  civitas,  which  thoroughly  answers  to  the  idea  of  the  social  and 
industrial  community  of  which,  at  that  period,  a  cenobitical  establishment 
was  formed. 

-  "Cuncta  apum  multitude  eum  secuta  est,  secumque  in  navi  ubi  in- 
sederat  collocavit  in  prora  navis.  .  .  ,  Alveariis  ad  nutriendos  examinum 
fetus  operam  dedit  quo  indigentibus  aliqua  suavioris  cibi  oblectamenta 
procuraret.  .  .  .  Hibernia  autem  in  qua  nunquam  usque  ad  illud  tempus 
apes  vivere  poterant,  nimia  mellis  fertilitate  dotatur." — Ap.  Rees,  p.  134. 
Colgan,  however  {Act.  SS.  HibcrnicE,  13th  February),  affirms  that  they 
already  existed  in  Ireland. 


THE    BRITISH   ISLES  427 

and  that  intellectual  civilisation  with  which  the  new  faith 
was  about  to  endow  Europe,  then  delivered  from  heathenism 
and  from  the  Roman  empire.  This  golden  age  presented 
two  remarkable  phenomena :  the  temporary  predominance 
for  one  or  two  centuries  of  certain  rites  and  customs  proper 
to  the  British  Church,  and  the  extraordinary  development 
of  monastic  institutions.  As  to  the  British  peculiarities  in 
proportion  as  they  become  apparent  under  Patrick's  suc- 
cessors, it  becomes  clear  that  they  differ  from  Roman  usages 
only  upon  a  few  points  of  no  real  importance,  although  at 
that  moment  they  seemed  weighty  enough.  They  vary 
from  Catholic  rule  only  in  respect  to  the  right  day  for  the 
feast  of  Easter,  the  form  and  size  of  the  monastic  tonsure, 
fi^d  the  ceremonies  of  baptism  ^ — questions  which  in  no  way 
involve  any  point  of  doctrine.  Nor  do  they  impugn  the 
authority  of  the  Holy  See  in  respect  to  matters  of  faith  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  support,  by  facts  of  authentic  docu- 
ments, those  doubts  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Irish,  which 
have  been  borrowed  from  the  unsatisfactory  and  partial 
learning  of  English  writers  of  the  past  century  by  various 
authors  of  our  own  day — such  as  Rettberg  and  Augustin 
Thierry :  that  orthodoxy  was  then,  what  it  has  always 
continued,  irreproachable. 

The  Catholic — the  Roman — faith  reigned  thus  without 
limitation  in  the  great  and  numberless  communities  which 
constituted  the  chief  strength  of  the  Church  founded  by 
Patrick  and  his  British  fellow-labourers.  This  Church  had 
been  at  its  very  origin  clothed  with  an  almost  exclusively 
monastic  character.  Episcopal  succession  remained  long 
unknown  or  confused  ;  the  authority  of  bishops,  deprived  of 
all  local  jurisdiction,  was  subordinated  to  that  of  the  abbots, 

1  A  learned  Englishman  of  our  own  day,  Dr.  Todd,  in  bis  Monograph 
on  St.  Patrick,  published  in  1863,  acknowledges  that  the  Irish  Church  of 
the  sixth  century  differed  in  nothing  as  to  doctrine  from  the  rest  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  maintains  her  independence  of 
the  Holy  See.  See  upon  this  question  an  excellent  article  in  the  Home 
and  Foreign  Review,  for  January  1864. 


42  8  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

even  when  the  latter  did  not  share  the  episcopal  rank. 
Patrick  had  converted  a  crowd  of  petty  princes,  chiefs  of 
tribes  or  clans ;  indeed,  all  the  primitive  saints  of  Ireland 
were  connected  with  reigning  families,  and  almost  all  the 
converted  chiefs  embraced  monastic  life.  Their  families, 
their  clansmen,  their  dependants,  followed  their  example. 
A  prince,  in  becoming  a  monk,  naturally  became  also  an 
abbot,  and  in  his  monastic  life  continued,  as  he  had  been  in 
his  worldly  existence,  the  chief  of  his  race  and  of  his  clan. 

The  first  great  monasteries  of  Ireland  were  then  nothing 
else,  to  speak  simply,  than  clans  reorganised  under  a  re- 
ligious form.  From  this  cause  resulted  the  extraordinary 
number  of  their  inhabitants,  who  were  counted  by  hundreds 
and  thousands ;  ^  from  this  also  came  their  influence  and 
productiveness,  which  were  still  more  wonderful.  In  these 
vast  monastic  cities,  that  fidelity  to  the  Church  which  Ire- 
land has  maintained  with  heroic  constancy  for  fourteen 
centuries,  in  face  of  all  the  excesses,  as  well  as  all  the  refine- 
ments, of  persecution,  took  permanent  root.  There  also  were 
trained  an  entire  population  of  philosophers,  of  writers,  of 
architects,  of  carvers,  of  painters,  of  caligraphers,  of  musicians, 
poets,  and  historians;  but,  above  all,  of  missionaries  and 
preachers,  destined  to  spread  the  light  of  the  Gospel  and  of 
Christian  education,  not  only  in  all  the  Celtic  countries,  of 
which  Ireland  was  always  the  nursing  mother,  but  through- 
out Europe,  among  all  the  Teutonic  races — among  the 
Franks  and  Burgundians,  who  were  already  masters  of  Gaul, 
as  well  as  amid  the  dwellers  by  the  Rhine  and  Danube,  and 
up  to  the  frontiers  of  Italy.  Thus  sprang  up  also  those 
armies  of  saints,  who  were  more  numerous,  more  national, 
more  popular,  and,  it  must  be  added,  more  extraordinary,  in 
Ireland,  than  in  any  other  Christian  land. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  unanimous  testimony  of  Chris- 
tendom conferred  upon  Ireland  at  this  period  the  name  of 

^  The  number  of  three  thousand  monks  is  constantly  met  with  in  the 
records  of  the  great  monasteries. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  429 

Isle  of  Saints  ;  1  but  it  is  much  less  known  that  these  saints 
were  all,  or  almost  all,  attached  to  monastic  institutions, 
which  retained  a  discipline  and  regularity,  steady  but 
strangely  allied  to  the  violence  and  eccentricity  of  the 
national  character.  The  ancient  relics  of  Irish  tradition 
show  them  to  us  classified,  and  as  if  ranged  in  line  of  battle, 
in  three  orders  or  battalions,  by  the  poetic  and  warlike 
imagination  of  the  Celt :  the  first,  commanded  by  St,  Patrick, 
was  composed  exclusively  of  bishops — Roman,  Briton,  Frank- 
ish,  or  Scotic  ^ — and  shone  like  the  sun ;  the  second,  com- 
manded by  St.  Columba,  and  composed  of  priests,  shone 
like  the  moon ;  and  the  third,  under  the  orders  of  Colman 
and  Aidan,  was  composed  at  once  of  bishops,  priests,  and 
hermits,  and  shone  like  the  stars.^  Let  us  point  out,  in 
passing,  in  this  beatific  crowd  the  famous  travellers  and  the 
sailor-monks.  Such  was  Brendan,  whose  fantastic  pilgrim- 
ages into  the  great  ocean,  in  search  of  the  earthly  Paradise, 
and  of  souls  to  convert,  and  unknown  lands  to  discover,  have 
been  preserved  under  the  form  of  visions,  which  are  always 
wonderfully  penetrated  by  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  theo- 
logical truth.'*  In  thus  putting  imagination,  as  well  as  the 
spirit  of  adventure,  at  the  service  of  the  faith  and  ideal 
Christian  virtue,  these  visions  are  worthy  of  being  reckoned 
among  the  poetic  sources  of  the  Divina  Commedia.^  They 
exercised  a  lively  influence  upon  the  Christian  imagination 
during  all   the  middle  ages,   and  even  up   to  the  time  of 

^  "  Hibernia,  insula  sanctorum,  Sanctis  et  mirabilibus  perplurimis  sub- 
limiter  plena  habetur." — Mariajstus  Scotus,  Chron.  ad  ann.  696  (A.D, 
589),  ap.  Pertz,  Monumenta,  vol.  vii.  p.  544. 

2  The  word  Scotic,  though  an  awkward  one,  is  made  use  of  here  and 
elsewhere  to  distinguish  the  Scots  of  Ireland  from  the  more  modern 
Scottish  race  which  has  since  identified  the  name  with  Scotland  alone. 
— Translator's  note. 

3  USSHER,  Antiquities,  pp.  473,  490,  913.  The  very  learned  Anglican 
primate  was  aided  in  his  researches  into  the  history  and  archjBology  of 
Ireland  by  David  Rooth,  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  Ossory,  to  whom  he 
publicly  avows  his  gratitude  in  various  parts  of  his  works. — See  also 
Lanigan,  vol.  i.  p.  5  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  13. 

*  La  Villemarque,  op.  cit.  ^  Ozanam,  (Euvres,  vol.  v.  p.  373. 


430  CHRISTIAN   ORIGIN   OF 

Christopher  Columbus  himself,  to  whom  the  salt-water  epic  of 
St.  Brendan  seems  to  have  pointed  out  the  way  to  America.^ 

By  the  side  of  this  monkish  traveller,  let  us  instance  as  a 
type  of  the  religious  who  remained  in  Ireland  to  fertilise  it 
by  their  labours,  a  monk-bishop  called  Dega  or  Dagan,  who 
passed  his  nights  in  transcribing  manuscripts,  and  his  days 
in  reading,  and  carving  in  iron  and  copper.  He  was  so 
laborious  that  the  construction  of  three  hundred  bells  and 
three  hundred  crosiers  of  bishops  or  abbots,  is  attributed  to 
him,  and  the  transcription  of  three  hundred  copies  of  the 
Gospels.  "  I  thank  my  God,"  he  said,  while  preaching  to  the 
monks  of  Bangor,  "  that  He  has  made  me  recognise  among 
you  the  three  orders  of  monks  which  I  have  already  seen 
elsewhere — those  who  are  angels  for  purity,  those  who  are 
apostles  for  activity,  and  those  who  would  be  martyrs,  were  it 
needed,  by  their  readiness  to  shed  their  blood  for  Christ."  ^ 

At  that  period,  as  ever  since,  the  love  and  practice  of 
music  was  a  national  passion  with  the  Irish,  The  mission- 
aries and  the  monks,  their  successors,  were  also  inspired  by 
this  passion,  and  knew  how  to  use  it  for  the  government 
and  consolation  of  souls.  Another  pleasant  legend  depicts 
to  us  its  influence,  in  the  form  of  ecclesiastical  chants,  upon 
an  Irish  youth.  Mochuda,  the  son  of  a  great  lord  of  Kerry, 
kept,  like  David,  his  father's  flocks  in  the  great  forests  which 
then  covered  a  district  now  almost  altogether  without  wood. 
He  attracted,  by  his  piety  and  grace,  the  regard  of  the  duke 
or  prince  of  the  province,  who  called  him  often  in  the  even- 

1  "I  am  convinced,"  he  said,  "that  the  terrestrial  paradise  is  in  the 
island  of  St.  Brendan,  which  nobody  can  reach  except  by  the  will  of  God." 
— Quoted  by  M.  Ferdinand  Denis,  Lc  Monde  Enchante,  p.  130.  There 
were  two  saints  of  the  name  of  Brendan  :  the  best  known,  founder  of  the 
monastery  of  Clonfert,  and  celebrated  for  his  voyages,  died  in  577. 

2  "  Hie  Dagreus  fuit  faber  tam  in  ferro  quam  in  asre,  et  scriba  insignis. 
,  .  .  Gratias  ago  Deo  meo  quod  S.  Moctei  postremo  similes  conventus  vos 
video,  tria  quippe  monachorum  genera  sibi  succedentia  habuit :  primum 
puritate  angelicum,  secundum  actibus  apostolicum,  tertium,  ut  sancti 
martyres,  sanguinem  pro  Christo  effundere  promptum." — BoLLAND.,  vol. 
iii.  Augusti,  pp.  657,  658. 


THE   BRITISH    ISLES  43  I 

ing  to  his  presence,  to  converse  with  him,  while  his  wife, 
who  was  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Munster,  showed  the 
same  affection  for  the  young  shepherd.  In  the  wood  where 
his  swine  fed,  there  passed  one  day  a  bishop  with  his  suite, 
chanting  psalms  in  alternate  strophes  as  they  continued  their 
course.  The  young  Mochuda  was  so  rapt  by  this  psalmody 
that  he  abandoned  his  flock,  and  followed  the  choir  of  singers 
to  the  gates  of  the  monastery  where  they  were  to  pass  the 
night.  He  did  not  venture  to  enter  with  them,  but  re- 
mained outside,  close  to  the  place  where  they  lay,  and  where 
he  could  hear  them  continue  their  song  till  the  hour  of 
repose,  the  bishop  chanting  longest  of  all  after  the  others 
were  asleep.  The  shepherd  thus  passed  the  entire  night. 
The  chief  who  loved  him  sought  him  everywhere,  and  when 
at  last  the  young  man  was  brought  to  him,  asked  why  he 
had  not  come,  as  usual,  on  the  previous  evening.  "  My 
lord,"  said  the  shepherd,  "  I  did  not  come  because  I  was 
ravished  by  the  divine  song  which  I  have  heard  sung  by  the 
holy  clergy ;  please  Heaven,  lord  duke,  that  I  was  but  with 
them,  that  I  might  learn  to  sing  as  they  do."  The  chief  in 
vain  admitted  him  to  his  table,  offered  him  his  sword,  his 
buckler,  his  lance,  all  the  tokens  of  a  stirring  and  prosperous 
life.  "  I  want  none  of  your  gifts,"  the  shepherd  always  re- 
plied ;  "  I  want  but  one  thing — to  learn  the  chant  which  I 
have  heard  sung  by  the  saints  of  God."  In  the  end  he 
prevailed,  and  was  sent  to  the  bishop  to  be  made  a  monk. 
The  legend  adds  that  thirty  beautiful  young  girls  loved  him 
openly  ;  for  he  was  handsome  and  agreeable  :  but  the  servant 
of  God  having  prayed  that  their  love  should  become  spiritual 
love,  they  were  all,  like  himself,  converted,  and  consecrated 
themselves  to  God  in  isolated  cells,  which  remained  under 
his  authority,  when  he  had  in  his  turn  become  a  bishop,  and 
founder  of  the  great  monastic  city  of  Lismore.'^ 

1  "  Ait  dux :  Veni  hue  quotidie  cum  aliis  subulcis.  .  .  .  Aliquando  sues 
pascebat  in  silvis,  aliquando  manebat  in  castellis  cum  duce.  .  .  .  Canebat 
episcopus  cum  comitibus  suis  psalmos  invicem  per  viam.  .  .  .  Ideo  ad  te 


432  CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF 

This  preponderance  of  the  monastic  element  in  the  Irish 
Church — which  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  first  apostles  of 
the  isle  were  monks,  and  was  at  the  same  time  thoroughly- 
justified  by  the  adventurous  zeal  of  their  successors — main- 
tained itself  not  only  during  all  the  flourishing  period  of  the 
Church's  history,  but  even  as  long  as  the  nation  continued 
independent.  Even  the  Anglo-Norman  conquerors  of  the 
twelfth  century,  though  they  too  came  from  a  country  where 
most  of  the  bishops  had  been  monks,  and  where  almost  all 
the  sees  had  begun  by  being  monasteries,  were  struck  by  this 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  Irish  Christianity.^ 

Of  all  these  celebrated  communities  of  the  sixth  century, 
which  were  the  most  numerous  ever  seen  in  Christendom, 
there  remain  only  vague  associations  connected  with  certain 
sites,  whose  names  betray  their  monastic  origin — or  a  few 
ruins  visited  by  unfrequent  travellers.  Let  us  instance,  for 
example,  Monasterevan,  founded  in  504,  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Barrow ;   Monasterboyce,^  a  great  lay  and  ecclesiastical 

non  veni,  domine  mi,  quia  delectavita  me  divinum  carmen,  quod  audivi  a 
cunctis  choris,  et  nusquam  audivi  simile  huic  carmini.  .  .  .  Nolo  aliquid 
dedonis  tuis  carnalibus,  sed  volo  vere  ut  carmen  quod  a  Sanctis  Dei  audivi 
discam.  .  .  .  S.  Mochuda  speciosus  erat,  et  in  juventute  sua  triginta 
juvenculEe  virgines  amaverunt  eum  magno  amore  carnali,  hoc  non  celantes. 
Famulus  autem  Dei  rogavit  pro  eis,  ut  carnalem  amorem  mutarent  in 
spiritualem  ;  quod  ita  est  factum  ;  illas  enim  virgines  seipsas  cum  suis 
cellis  Deo  et  S.  Mochudaj  ubtulerunt."— ^cto  SS.  Bolland.,  vol.  iii.  Mali, 
p.  379.  Mochuda  is  better  known  under  the  name  of  Cartagh,  which  was 
that  of  the  bishop  whose  disciple  he  became,  and  whose  name  he  adopted 
out  of  affection  for  his  spiritual  father.     He  died  in  637. 

'  "Nam  monachi  erant  maxime  qui  ad  prjedicandum  venerant." — Bede, 
1.  iii.  c.  3.  "  Cum  fere  omnes  Hibernise  prEelati  de  monasteriis  in  clerum 
electi  sunt,  quae  monachi  sunt,  sollicite  complent  omnia,  quse  vero  clerici 
vel  prffilati,  fere  pr^etermittunt  universa."-GiRALDUS  Cambebnsis,  Topo- 
graphia  Hibernice,  dist.  iii.  c.  29. 

2  Founded  by  St.  Builhe,  who  died  in  621.  M.  Henri  Martin,  in  his 
interesting  pamphlet  entitled  Antiquites  Irlandaises  1863,  has  given  an 
animated  picture  of  Monasterboyce  and  of  that  "  burying-ground  in  which 
there  rises  a  round  tower  a  hundred  and  ten  feet  high,  of  the  most  graceful 
poise,  and  the  boldest  and  finest  form.  Around  it  are  the  ruins  of  two 
churches  and  two  magnificent  stone  crosses  ;  the  highest  of  these  crosses 
is  twenty-seven  feet  in  height,  covered  with  Gaelic  ornaments  and  inscrip- 


THE    BRITISH    ISLES  433 

school  in  the  valley  of  the  Boyne ;  Innisfallen,  in  the  pic- 
turesque Lake  of  Killarney ;  and,  above  all,  Glendalough,  in 
the  valley  of  the  two  lakes,  with  its  nine  ruined  churches, 
its  round  tower,  and  its  vast  cemetery,  a  sort  of  pontifical 
and  monastic  necropolis,  founded  in  the  midst  of  a  wild  and 
desolate  landscape,  by  St.  Kevin,  one  of  the  first  successors 
of  Patrick,  and  one  of  those  who,  to  quote  the  Irish  hagio- 
graphers,  counted  by  millions  the  souls  whom  they  led  to 
heaven.^  Among  these  sanctuaries  there  are  two  which 
must  be  pointed  out  to  the  attention  of  the  reader,  less 
because  of  their  population  and  celebrity,  than  because  they 
have  produced  the  two  most  remarkable  Celtic  monks  of 
whom  we  have  to  speak. 

These  are  Clonard  and  Bangor,  both  of  which  reckoned 
three  thousand  monks.  The  one  was  founded  by  St.  Finnian, 
who  was  also  venerated  as  the  celestial  guide  of  innumerable 
souls.^  He  was  born  in  Ireland,  but  educated  by  David  and 
other  monks  in  Britain,  where  he  spent  thirty  years.  He 
then  returned  to  his  native  country  to  create  the  great 
monastic  school  of  Clonard,  from  which,  says  the  historian,^ 
saints  came  out  in  as  gi-eat  number  as  Greeks  of  old  from 
the  sides  of  the  horse  of  Troy. 

The  other,  the  third  Bangor — glorious  rival  of  the  two 
monasteries  of  the  same  name  in  Cambria — was  founded 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Irish  Sea  facing  Britain,*  by  Comgall, 
tions.  These  latter  alone  repay  the  journey,  for  there  exists  nothing  like 
them  on  the  Continent.  As  a  specimen  of  Gaelic  Christian  art,  there  is 
nothing  comparable  to  Monasterboyce."  M.  Martin  also  remarks,  at  a 
distance  of  three  miles,  the  graceful  ruins  of  Mellifont  :  "  In  the  depths 
of  a  valley,  by  the  banks  of  a  brook,  with  a  phurch;or.tl)e^C'^-ivi<,l  p,eriod, 

.  .  and,  at  some  steps  from  the  n.hnr'ih,  a  ■  rotofid''/,  (oY  ic.^aptor-house), 
with  Roman  arcades  of  the  purest  style. '  IVIellifonii  was  a  Cistercian 
abbey,  founded  by  a  community  from  Clairvaujr,  w.hcm  St,  Eernai'd  sent  to 
his  friend  St.  Malachiin  1135.  ,,:,.' 

1  "  Multarum  millium  animarum  duces." 

-  "  Irmumeras  ad  patriam  animas  coelestem  ducens," 

'  USSHER,  Antiquities,  p.  622.  ■  ',',,'',/       .'  '>      ■  ■'      '■; 

*  It  is  now  only  a  village  on  the  shore ,0/  i^e'i^ky  jof.B^fa'st, '.without  the 
slightest  vestige  of  the  famous  monastery. 

VOL.  XL  2   E 


434         CHRISTIAN    ORIGIN    OF   THE   BRITISH   ISLES 

who  was  descended  from  a  reigning  family  of  Irish  Picts, 
but  who  had,  like  Patrick,  Finnian,  and,' so  many  others, 
lived  in  Britain.  He  gave  a  rule,  written  in  Irish  verse,  to 
this  community,  the  fame  of  which  was  to  eclipse  that  of  all 
other  Irish  monasteries  in  the  estimation  of  Europe,  and 
whose  three  thousand  friars,  divided  into  seven  alternate 
choirs,  each  composed  of  three  hundred  singers,  chanted  the 
praises  of  God  day  and  night,  to  call  down  His  grace  upon 
their  Church  and  their  country. 

It  was  Bangor  that  produced,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
the  great  St.  Columbanus,  whose  glorious  life  was  passed 
far  from  Ireland,  who  sowed  the  seed  of  so  many  great  and 
holy  deeds  between  the  Vosges  and  the  Alps,  between  the 
banks  of  the  Loire  and  those  of  the  Danube,  and  whose  bold 
genius  having  by  turns  startled  the  Franks,  the  Burgundians, 
and  the  Lombards,  disputed  the  future  supremacy  over  the 
monastic  world  for  half  a  century  with  the  rule  of  St.  Bene- 
dict. And  it  is  from  Clonard  that  we  now  await  another 
great  saint  of  the  same  name,  who,  restoring  and  extending 
the  work  of  Ninian  and  Palladius,  was  to  conquer  Caledonia 
to  the  Christiah  faith,  and  whose  sons  at  the  destined  moment 
were,  if  not  to  begin,  at  least  to  accomplish  and  complete 
the  difficult  conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 


END   OF   VOL.    II. 


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